Algae ecologies: an exploration of poetry and marine science methods across the lab and field

This paper investigates new perspectives that poetry might bring to the scientific study of algae across the field and laboratory. It presents a cross-disciplinary research project “Algae Ecologies”, which generates poetic methods whilst conducting the scientific methods of marine sampling, snorkel surveys and microscopy. Poetic methods that evolved through research are discussed and include “poetic sampling”, “post-field noting”, “micro notation” and “sensory scaling”. Poems that were developed from these methods form the results of the study. Results, therefore, are not presented as scientific data, but as poems that consider what data might be from a poetic perspective. The poems and poetic methods are framed through humanities-based research and contextualized within the environmental and blue humanities (Bubant et al. 2022; Jue, 2020) and contemporary poetics (Skoulding, 2020, Smailbegovićh, 2021; Retallack, 2007). Particularly relevant to this special issue of Applied Phycology “Algae at the interface”, this research investigates how language, methods, tools and techniques coalesce around algae, specifically forms of microalgae and kelp. The work focuses on how algae are studied, sampled and described within marine science. It also questions what new perspectives on algae and marine science poetry might bring and how cross-disciplinary research may, in turn, elicit new poetic perspectives. The paper concludes with reflections on cross-disciplinary research and poetic practice, future developments and potential impacts.