Most scientists don’t have room in their everyday lives for the arts. Guy McPherson makes room for the arts in an unusual way: he is a scientist who teaches poetry.
According to McPherson, professor emeritus at the University of Arizona, it all happened accidently. He is an ecologist and conservation biologist, well respected in his field for his numerous contributions to the scientific literature. As an ecologist, he studies limits to growth. As a conservation biologist, a field that combines natural science, social science, and activism, it’s no surprise McPherson appreciates the use of art to help make the case for saving the world’s biological diversity. But from appreciation of art to teaching poetry is no single, small step.
McPherson’s interests always were eclectic, and he used all available tools to engage students in his courses. For many years he required students in his science courses to complete a major piece of art or literature as a significant part of their final grade. This activity solicited confusion and animus from his students for the first 15 weeks of each semester. Then, after completing the project as the semester neared its end, virtually every student claimed it was the best part of the course. The first attempt at this approach produced an inordinate array of poetry, sculpture, photography, painting, and other works linked to conservation biology. McPherson calls it a mind-expanding experience for him and the students.
Even as McPherson was taking an unusual approach to classroom teaching, he was transforming himself from mundane scientist to social critic, and several of his op-ed pieces focused on limits to economic growth appeared in local newspapers. These guest commentaries were met with hostility from university administrators, but they were welcomed by Madeline Kiser, founder of Poetry Inside/Out, a program that includes incarcerated individuals (inside) as well as other populations (out). For many years, Poetry Inside/Out had been giving voice to wise people long marginalized or ignored by mainstream America, and McPherson was captivated by the approach and the opportunity to interact with individuals beyond the mainstream. McPherson recalls his invitation with his usual sense of humor: “Madeline was always looking for wacky … er, counter-cultural people to join the conversation.”
After his first visit to the county’s juvenile detention facility as a guest speaker, McPherson asked if he could join the program the following week. A year later, he was still coming, week in and week out. By this time, university administrators had banned McPherson from teaching in his home department: His attempts to educate students into leading lives of excellence, instead of focusing narrowly on job training for the wage economy, were too counter-cultural for a large, research-oriented university. McPherson maintained a teaching program through the university’s honors college and shortly after becoming a regular participant in Poetry Inside/Out, his honors course became one of the “outs” in the program.
During the final years of his university tenure, McPherson was not allowed to teach in his home department, his scholarship on global climate change and limits to economic growth were reviled by university administrators, and his outreach in Poetry Inside/Out was an embarrassment to the same administrators. Feeling as if he was doing the best work of his life, McPherson left the ivory tower at the height of a productive career in 2009. He cites two factors in his move from a large city to the rural countryside: (1) his personal difficulty in swimming upstream against the strong cultural current that afflicts institutions of higher education, and (2) he believes the costs of the non-negotiable American way of life, particularly in large cities, include obedience at home and oppression abroad.
McPherson lives more than 200 miles from the incarceration facilities where he formerly worked to give voice to marginalized people, thus negating his ability to participate in Poetry Inside/Out or a similar program. He lives in an off-grid, straw-bale house where he puts into practice his lifelong interest in sustainable living via organic gardening, raising small animals for eggs and milk, and working with members of his rural community. He supervises several students each semester as they pursue independent-study projects, and he has hosted more than 100 visitors at his property during the last year. Apparently he’s not yet willing to abandon the life of an educator.
At night, McPherson reads poetry. He claims the words are infused with fond memories.
Click here to listen to an interview with Guy McPherson on OneRadioNetwork
Comments
Should be the Green Party candidate in 2012. Certainly my choice for POTUS.
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