Cross-Pollinations: The Marriage of Science and Poetry (Credo)

Cross-Pollinations is a book about dissolving boundaries and blending disciplines to reveal a world rich in possibility, one where unthinkable solutions emerge.

Gary Paul Nabhan, an accomplished biologist and writer—and “a voice that speaks to the laity in clear and coherent sentences” (New York Times)—believes that the free movement between science and literature, between cultivated and wild habitats, and between culture and language engenders the kind of unlikely and seemingly incompatible perceptions that are essential to discovery of any kind.

In Cross-Pollinations, he illustrates the successful marriage of science and poetry with true stories about color-blind scientists, the knowledge stored in ancient Native American songs, the link between an Amy Clampitt poem and diabetes research, and a unique collaboration in support of the Ironwood Forest National Monument.

Literary ethnobotanist Nabhan, a captivating storyteller in command of complex ecological thought, appeals to both our intellect and our imagination in his groundbreaking books, which include Coming Home to Eat (2002). In his latest thoughtful rumination, a contribution to the worthy Credo series that also includes Rick Bass, Alison Hawthorne Deming, and William Kittredge, Nabhan offers a fresh and stimulating analysis of the crucial role cross-pollination plays both in nature and in human endeavors. Drawing on such personal experiences as his own color-blindness to reveal how an unexpected "perceptual shift" can lead to new understanding, he recounts how an attentive reading of an O'odham song-poem about the profound relationship between the sacred datura and the hawkmoth yielded invaluable scientific knowledge, and how an Amy Clampitt poem helped him solve the puzzle of how desert foods once protected desert people from diabetes. Nabhan is at once scientist, mystic, and artist as he marvels over the surprising results of the usually covert cross-pollination between art and science, an interaction that truly does deserve more conscious cultivation. Donna Seaman
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