npm pmmu #3: shining science poetry

This month, inspired by Tabatha Yeatts' "Poem-Song Match-Up" project, I'm posting Poetry-Music Match-Ups. Tabatha invited poems and then selected music to go with them; I'm inviting folks to suggest their own match-ups, and when I run out of crowd-sourced combos, I'll share more of my own many, many PMMUs, with the emphasis on poems and music with appeal to young people.  If something comes to your mind, send it to me HERE.
 
Today I'm inspired by April Halprin Wayland's April 1 post featuring The Poetry of Science (The Poetry Friday Anthology for Science for Kids).  This collection from Pomelo Books, ably created and edited by Sylvia Vardell and Janet Wong, is the only poetry collection I know that exists in a "commerical" form for kids and their families to enjoy at home AND in an "educational" edition with accompanying teacher/librarian version for school use.  This combination of reader-appealing PLUS classroom-useful is blindingly brilliant. Here's a poem that hints at the dazzling array of work in this anthology.


Now...    | by James Carter

The birth of a star.
The beat of a heart.

          The arc of an hour.
          The bee and the flower.

The flight of the swan.
The weight of the sun.

           A river in flood.
           The nature of blood.

The future in space
for this human race.

            Now that's 
            what I call
            science.



And what music goes with this shining treasure trove of science poetry for kids? To me it's obvious...

  

 "She Blinded Me with Science" by Thomas Dolby, 1982

Both Thomas Dolby and James Carter are British, I find, making this pairing especially fitting--and I love the way this podcast version suggests that music IS science (and math and poetry in motion).  I hope you, and the young people you know, will be intrigued!

Come back tomorrow, April 4, for a tribute to a fallen prophet. Can you guess the Poetry-Music Match-Up I have planned?