Chemphasis

A great blue heron stands in a nearby creek.

A great blue heron spreads its wings while standing in rushing waters.

Observed in a day’s late through-farin’;
Impressive, a bird’s state (due sharin’):
With water-rush weathered
In stature quite feathered,
A sudden surprise… great blue heron!

#LimerickSunday

A small red cardinal is visible in the center of trees in the midst of a rainstorm. (This limerick takes poetic license in alluding to Hooke’s Law, used in physical science to define the movement of a spring via a “spring constant,” to reference the reliably back-and-forth nature of the changes in May’s spring weather.)

Blue skies are already visible on the opposite horizon, reinforcing the theme of dramatic weather changes as a constant aspect of this season. (This limerick takes poetic license in alluding to Hooke’s Law, used in physical science to define the movement of a spring via a “spring constant,” to reference the reliably back-and-forth nature of the changes in May’s spring weather.)

A cardinal’s hue, vivid-winging
As rainstorm sets branches to swinging;
Soon, blue skies aplenty
On day one-and-twenty
In back-and-forth-steps of May’s springing.

#SpringConstants #Limericks

To celebrate day metrologic
With global theme, STEM-philosophic,
This May marks attention
To Metre Convention
As sesquicentennial topic!

#WorldMetrologyDay #Limericks

Merits May Fourth an ode systematic
To far galaxy’s guide enigmatic,
Whose shifts anastrophic
With themes philosophic
Will invert lines to fame cinematic.

#LimerickSunday #Yoda
#MayThe4thBeWithYou

The month’s new-complete contribution
Re: concepts, reactions, allusions;
A break from spring’s stressing:
Chem-terms, verse-addressing,
In welcome routine’s resolution.

#NaPoWriMo #Limericks #NaPoWriMo2025

Acidic-environment feature:
Oft-stable reactant’s chem-cleaver.
The process provides
Alcohol and halide:
Two products formed out of the ether.

#NaPoWriMo #Limericks #OrganicChem #Mechanisms

A radical initiation
Begins with bond-breaking notation.
Ensuing, next steps
Allow varied prospects.
(Some cases, polymerizations.)

#NaPoWriMo #Limericks #OrganicChem #Mechanisms #RadicalChemistry

Tomorrow’s view: Finals Week, finding
Last emails, announcements, remindings.
Spring weather enlivens;
Exams on horizon:
The path towards term’s end now is winding.

#NaPoWriMo #LimerickSunday #FinalsWeek

The route deemed saponification,
Historical soap generation:
Now, path hydrolyzing
Is ester-incising
Through basic-solution causation.

#NaPoWriMo #Limericks #OrganicChem #Mechanisms

Brilliantly, diligently,
Rosalind Franklin:
Her crystallographic skills,
Insights display;
Her expertise, honed
In X-ray diffraction:
Unwinds major mystery,
Reveals DNA.

#NaPoWriMo #DNADay #RosalindFranklin

chemphasis.com/2021/03/30/s...

A tree in springtime, with blossoming pink flowers

Summer trees: towering oaks creating a canopy of green.

Autumn tree with bright orange leaves

A quote from Joyce Kilmer’s famous 1913 poem, “Trees.” The poem begins: “I think that I shall never see/ A poem lovely as a tree.”

I think that I shall deem this eve
Of day to celebrate the leaves!
On morrow, Arbor Day awaits,
The verse-defying plants to fête.

#NaPoWriMo #EarthWeek #ArborDayEve #JoyceKilmer

All’s well that ends well, in comprising
Five acts and a plot galvanizing.
The world’s for the staging,
With narratives paging
Through dramas’ iambic feet, rising.

#NaPoWriMo #Limericks #HappyBirthday #Shakespeare

A quote from the essay “Learning to See,” in Robin Wall Kimmerer’s GATHERING MOSS: A NATURAL AND CULTURAL HISTORY OF MOSSES, first published in 2003. Kimmerer writes: “Slowing down and coming close, we see patterns emerge and expand out of the tangled tapestry threads. The threads are simultaneously distinct from the whole, and part of the whole... Knowing the fractal geometry of an individual snowflake makes the winter landscape even more of a marvel. Knowing the mosses enriches our knowing of the world.”

On Earth Day, note worthy intention
Of science’s close-paid attention:
See patterns emerging
From threads’ new-converging,
Revealing enriching dimensions.

#NaPoWriMo #Limericks #EarthDay #Observation
#RobinWallKimmerer

Sustainable week’s dedication:
A topical, yearly summation
With views interfacial.
This April’s theme: glacial,
In spring season’s chem-celebration!

#NaPoWriMo #Limericks #ChemistsCelebrateEarthWeek
#CCEW #Sustainability #Glaciers

A photograph of a robin on a tree branch, surrounded by blossoming flowers

A cyanotype of a bird sitting on a branch in springtime-- a past art project comparable to the photograph posted today

A morning’s song from bird-soprano,
In tree-set melodic crescendo;
The view, reminiscent
Of project long-distant,
Past print in a type of cyano.

#NaPoWriMo #LimerickSunday

Element-naming:
Consider potassium,
Alkaline nature seen
Back in the day.
Saga through history:
Named after potash;
The Latin form, “kalium”;
Symbol is K.

#NaPoWriMo #STEMVocab

Same atoms; distinct connectivities:
Two isomers’ key descriptivities.
With “parts being equal,”
Second structure’s a sequel
To first, in atomic vicinities.

#NaPoWriMo #Limericks #STEMVocab

A read of the term here is literal:
“One hundred steps” seen in the interval
From boil to freeze
As we scale the degrees
In the temp’rature’s centigrade water-fall.

#NaPoWriMo #Limericks #STEMVocab

Read past-astronomical ponderings,
Ideas of odysseys, conjuring.
Stars: fixed in the sky,
But some objects move by--
The planets, so deemed for their “wandering.”

#NaPoWriMo #Limericks #STEMVocab

A building-block term first-admissible;
To everyday vision, invisible,
The atom in logic
Most etymologic
Takes name from the Greek: “indivisible.”

#NaPoWriMo #Limericks #STEMVocab

A quote from Isaac Asimov’s introduction to his 1959 book, WORDS OF SCIENCE AND THE HISTORY BEHIND THEM. The quote states: “Entering the world of mathematics and science turns into a meeting with a whole realm of new words... The scientific vocabulary is the bridge by which we enter the land, not the wall that keeps us out.” This week's poems will focus on some common scientific terms.

Intro classes’
Sweeping natures:
Learn AND speak
The nomenclatures!
Some, acknowledged;
Many, hid;
Closer reads can
Build a bridge.

#NaPoWriMo #STEMVocab #IsaacAsimov

With notes, marginalia, daydreaming—
Scrap paper as palette now seeming.
The lim’rick, non-thwartive:
A format supportive
In April’s routine, still-esteeming.

#NaPoWriMo #NearHalfwayPoint
#LimerickSunday #WritingCommunity

A heroine indelible in text…
Adventures, perplexed and complex:
A dawnzer’s lee light,
Creativity’s flights,
And keen interest in what happens next!

#NaPoWriMo #Limericks
#NationalLibraryWeek
#BeverlyCleary #RamonaQuimby

Deftly, inventively,
Percy L. Julian
(Born on this date in 1899)
Works at his lab bench with
Techniques organic on
Corticosteroids’
Synthetic design.

#NaPoWriMo #SciencePoetry #PercyJulian

chemphasis.com/2021/03/18/t...

A quote from Margaret Atwood's 1990 interview in THE PARIS REVIEW. The quote is: "The genesis of a poem for me is usually a cluster of words. The only good metaphor I can think of is a scientific one: dipping a thread into a supersaturated solution to induce crystal formation." The posted poem uses some terms related to solution chemistry in building on this vivid image!

One metaphor most vivid for poetic inspiration: /
The spark of creativity in supersaturation. /
A sudden-seen assembly: solute’s newly found formation /
Yields crystallizing product from excessive concentration.

#NaPoWriMo #SciencePoetry
#NationalLibraryWeek #MargaretAtwood

An avian, brass-themed musician;
A writer of web compositions:
Indelible stories
Form mind’s lab’ratories,
Imaginative in ambition.

#NaPoWriMo #Limericks
#NationalLibraryWeek #EBWhite
#CharlottesWeb #TrumpetOfTheSwan

A photo of the moment of totality from central Ohio during the April 2024 solar eclipse.

One year since a 3 p.m. midnight,
An opportune pause in the sunlight;
A brief interaction
With solar subtraction:
Eclipsing occasion in hindsight.

#NaPoWriMo #Limericks #SciencePoetry
#EclipsingInteractions #TotalSolarEclipse2024

A photo of several golden daffodils, in honor of William Wordsworth's birthday and his poem "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud." The limerick in the post links some of the vivid images from Wordsworth's poem to some related STEM jargon and concepts (taking significant poetic license to do so!).

A fluttering, dancing occasion
‘Twixt floral and bay wave equations?
The hue of the daffodil:
Absorption of xanthophyll!
Chem words, worth poetic persuasion.

#NaPoWriMo #Limericks #SciencePoetry
#HappyBirthday #Wordsworth

For stories in wondrous locations;
For resources; for inspiration;
For questions advisory…
We’re drawn to the library:
A welcome site, found in translation.

#NaPoWriMo #LimerickSunday
#NationalLibraryWeek #DrawnToTheLibrary
#TranslationalMotion

An etymologic devotion
Of abbreviational notion;
“Hg” as the symbol
For metal most nimble:
Quicksilvery liquid in motion.

#NaPoWriMo #Limericks #SciencePoetry
#ElementNames #Mercury #Hydrargyrum