Science and Art

 What is the effect of art on the brain? Read the article for one answer. The work of Quentin Massys, who painted this portrait, decreased blood flow in the test subjects. Bad rap, if you ask us.

Poem with Radiometer

Four vanes pierced by a spindle,
a cotillion in black and white.
Moving in atmosphere lighter than air,
one searches out the other moving away.

As inside the glass, outside. You move slowly
through me, and light bounces from one skin
to the other, a kind of feint. To kick at the shadows
becomes a function of how we breathe.

But what muscles the endless spin?
Dark hides from light as light pursues it.
You knuckle your eyes in disbelief, saying it’s dangerous
to stand this close to such a rapidly rotating truth.

If this was an experiment, it could be extrapolated
to metaphor. We think: it takes opacity to capture light.
We think: if only the clouds did not erase the sun,
we could quantify forever.

Poem with Radiometer

Four vanes pierced by a spindle,
a cotillion in black and white.
Moving in atmosphere lighter than air,
one searches out the other moving away.

As inside the glass, outside. You move slowly
through me, and light bounces from one skin
to the other, a kind of feint. Once the light warms
the dark, to kick at the shadows becomes a function
of how we breathe.

But what muscles the endless spin?
Dark hides from light as light pursues it.
You knuckle your eyes in disbelief, saying it’s dangerous
to stand this close to such a rapidly rotating truth.

If this was an experiment, it could be extrapolated
to metaphor. We think: it takes opacity to capture light.
We think: if only the clouds did not erase the sun,
we could quantify forever.
Still, the sun sets on even the darkest days.

A Review of MULTIVERSE

What a lovely surprise, eh? Thank you, Grady Harp, from the Snell sisters!


Far More Than A Poetic Experiment, May 30, 2009
By Grady Harp (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews

MULTIVERSE by Cheryl Snell is a short collection of poignant poems that edge the idea of a MULTIple universe replacing the concept of a simple UNIverse. But lest the reader be afraid that the scientific aspect of this premise is prevalent in this collection, it must be pointed out that despite the original 'idea' of the title, the poems in this collection are immediately accessible, very beautiful works indeed.

The flow and meaningful content of this book of poems by a seasoned writer is made even more seductive by the addition of expressionistic paintings by Janet Snell. Rarely have poems been so well 'illustrated' or at least so integrated as they are by the two Snells working in tandem. At the heart of these poems and art is a sense of home, of the sounds of and sense of night, and the radiant meanderings of on seasonal strokes. And yet Snell knows how to bring all of nature together, to include humans, in a touching manner. For example:

DYING SEASON
By the time our father bolted
from his sickbed to squeeze
the nurse's breast, we'd worked
ourselves into a frenzy of waiting.

When he fell back on the pillow,
He's sleeping, we whispered.
He can't hear our words' mad buzz.

Outside, a dragonfly, transparent
wings on a blue-tinged stick,
hovered above a broken cricket
dragging though the backyard thatch.

It rose up, sudden as a mind changing,
and the room sagged with breath
held against the last thing we wanted to see:
a pair of wings escaping, the world left out of reach.

This is a collection of poems to be lingered over, like reminders of first views or experiences we usually keep to ourselves for fear that speaking of them will make them lost to us. Snell has captured these moments and we can only hope she will continue to write such tender thoughts as well as in MULTIVERSE.
-Grady Harp, May 09

Cheryl tries to talk over Janet's head

One Sunday, my husband was reading the paper when he burst into laughter. “What? What?” I asked. He showed me a cartoon of two brothers and eight nephews drowning. “Well, that’s macabre.”

“No, that’s Hamilton’s Rule,” he told me, “which tells us under what conditions altruism is manifested. The man on the shore must determine how many nephews are worth one brother.” Just the scaffolding I needed for my new novel, Rescuing Ranu! It would be interesting to put my protagonist, the headstrong mathematician Nela from Shiva's Arms, in a situation where she would be forced to go from abstract thinker to selfless guardian.

Other questions arose from that. How related do you have to be to make the cost-benefit ratio of saving someone favorable? And what of the relationships not based on blood? Since Nela had to undergo some kind of transformation, what could be the catalyst for such a change? A man? A child? Possibly. Love could soften the emotional scar tissue Nela had built up through years of straddling two cultures. The plight of immigrants, the lives they make elsewhere, and the families they leave behind, raised yet another question: how much can a person stand to lose? When confronted with dueling loyalties, which part of a divided self goes, and what stays? Themes began to take shape on the page---and suddenly I was in business. This is the the plot in a nutshell:

In a run-down motel in India, Nela Sambashivan tries to regroup after a stalled romance and an academic power struggle. Intending to research the mathematics of collectives, she is drawn instead into the lives of ten year old Ranu, the cunning motel keeper who exploits her, and a village elder named Uncle, who believes that everything is for sale.

At a vegetable vendor’s one day, Nela happens upon her old lover, Jackson, sick and abandoned by his civil engineering crew. She takes him back to her shack and nurses him. They rekindle their affair, and as Jackson regains his health, he takes on Nela’s concerns about Ranu. With the goal of leaving the child better off than the way they found her, the couple travels to her village to meet with Uncle, who finagles their help in modernizing the place.

As a thank you, Uncle offers Ranu’s baby sister, Meera, to Jackson and Nela. Appalled, they pay him another visit, intending to confront him but interrupting a marriage-brokering. A glimpse of a red wedding sari and smoke from a ceremonial fire confirms their worst suspicions. They daringly charge the ritual and rescue Ranu from a forced marriage. Nela is injured, and while she recovers, she hatches a plan to adopt Ranu and take her back to her university town. Jackson has other wars to wage, and stays behind.

Ranu unexpectedly fails to thrive in her new, foreign surroundings, and Nela must confront her miscalculations. In its recursive turning ever homeward, Rescuing Ranu opens into a meditation on sacrifice, survival, and the mysterious alchemy of love.