The scientific poetry of Andrés París: “There must be a little poetry in science and a little science in poetry”

Science and literature can go hand in hand and Andrés París' poems are proof of this. Through the use of scientific vocabulary, the poet is able to express and evoke emotions in his readers.

Andrés París (Madrid, 1995) is a young poet with a great career. His poetic work has already won several awards, including the First Prize for Poetry V Premio Poeta de Cabra and the Lanzadera Poetry Prize from Madrid City Council 2017. In addition to its artistic aspect, it also stands out for its His more scientific side, which is that he graduated in Biochemistry and is a PhD student in Molecular Biosciences at the Autonomous University of Madrid with a scholarship from La Caixa, is an artist who manages to intertwine the two worlds through his poems.

Question: What was it like when you received the news that your collection of poems was awarded the II José Antonio Santano International Young Poetry Prize?

To respond: Well, look, the strange coincidence happened that it was a day when I was just celebrating the fact of having published my first scientific article and I was already celebrating. In the middle of the restaurant I received a call from the gentleman, José Antonio Santano, to tell me the news and then this party added to the party. It was a very happy moment, I started crying, I screamed — the whole restaurant was looking at me — it was super emotional. It was my first prize, in fact, the only prize for a published collection of poems, it was much more special than I imagined.

Q: To know about your beginnings, tell me a little, when did your passion for writing begin? What led you to write poetry?

A: I believe that we all have people that we notice in our close environment, whether they are family or friends. I would say the first promoter was my father who wrote poems and read poetry to me. I think the real awakening occurred during adolescence, when a language and literature teacher challenged the whole class to write a cantiga de amigo — the cantiga de amigo is a very short medieval poem that has a meter that I don't remember now and a length that I don't remember either—but I liked it, I'm very playful, I really like games, puzzles, following metrics and guidelines, so I did it. The teacher really liked it and invited me to continue. That was when I was 14, I kept going and going. This led to the publication of my first book. avant-garde sonnets and candles Since then I haven't stopped writing.

«I remember my language teacher came on the first day and said: “let's see boys, define literature” and of course, we all used the dictionary definition. What she suddenly started to explain were the definitions of other authors about literature and there was one that I remember which is: “literature is the echo of the universe resonating in the heart of the human being”. I never forgot him again. It was that arrow in the heart that I needed and from that day on I needed literature in my life.

Q: Your works are characterized by containing vocabulary and scientific references. What is the purpose of using these scientific resources? Do you think it is suitable for all readers to understand?

A: I had never thought about the objective, I suppose that in the end the person reports the world from their perspective. From the blue of the world From my perspective, I studied biochemistry, a master's degree in biomedicine and I'm about to finish my doctoral thesis, so I feel that science is a fundamental part of my world and my reality, it has to be present in my way of expressing myself. truth, which is poetry. For me, poetry and science have in common this search, this yearning for truth, this obsession with truth. So there has to be a little poetry in science and a little science in poetry. My way of putting science in poetry is through the lexicon, through figures, shapes...

«My reality is a reality that on the surface may be a little sterile —that of a laboratory doing experiments— but in reality when you find beauty in something as simple as a graph. If you find it beautiful, beauty awakens for you – like a game of chess that happens to me – you begin to discover that it is not so different from the beauty of a poem. Then you start to make connections, you start to join the dots and this scientific poetry or this poetic science emerges.

For me science is not saying dendritic cell, in fact, in the book From the blue of the world There is a poem: The second law of thermodynamics which has no other scientific concept other than the title which is the second law of thermodynamics. Talk about the consequences of things, the chaos of the inevitable, the inevitability of chaos and peace. Sometimes the text can be a little obscure, a little abstruse, complicated, with inaccessible words, but the challenge is to talk about science without the reader knowing that you are talking about science. Because this book was actually written during the pandemic and there are some poems that make identical references, it is an unequivocal reference to the pandemic, the virus, the disease, what we are, and no terms like virus, antibodies, pcr appear.

I think poetry is about leaving things mysterious, about covering them with a veil, with gauze, letting the light pass through but not all of it and letting the reader discover what they want.

Q: It must be difficult to combine scientific work with writing, how do you manage to maintain a balance between the two disciplines?

A: We don't balance writing, writing is like putting your foot in a shoe that doesn't fit, it's like forcing. You become calm and reprimanded by an idea that pierces your brain and you say “I have to do something with this” and start writing it. In other words, you don't choose when to compose, you are doing your life as a scientist and suddenly literature pierces you, slaps you in the slap and you have to respond. So how do I do this? To survive, when this happens to me I have to leave science and dedicate myself to poetry and then I return to science and also sleep little, that is the practical key.

Q: In the interview you gave to Televisión Española 1, you stated that science and poetry can go hand in hand, what do you think of the current situation of artists and the contempt that is held for any artistic expression in the face of the prestige of science?

A: I think it's a vision that is imposed on us in adolescence when —and I know this from some friends— teachers who see good students recommend that they do a bachelor's degree in science, “don't go into Humanities because that's not good for you.”nothing” . I think it's a bit of an imposition that we have to fight against, and how do you fight it? Well, being tolerant, how is one tolerant? Well, talking to the scientist and the artist, creating bridges, connections that don't create independent worlds but, deep down, combined, that's a little what I want.

Q: Finally, as a writer, what advice would you give to people who want to start writing?

A: Three pieces of advice: read a lot, read more and read everything and then start writing. I mean, I think the only way to start is to read. I started reading because my literature teacher recommended some poetry books to me and I started reading the classics. So, my recommendation would be to start reading a lot and read for the classics that taste, that taste. Don't worry about not understanding, just open your soul to the poem and let it penetrate inside you and suddenly without knowing it you will start to think poetically, the poetic mind is trained and the best way is by reading.

It is clear that a successful future awaits this young poet. Thanks to his conception of reality, the scientific world and the lyrical world find a bridge where they coexist in harmony. your poems From the blue of the world They are available on Amazon, El Corte Inglés and La Casa del Libro.

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