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Utah's poet laureate has taken her poet's eye and ear to the Earth's southernmost continent to observe biologists at work in a remote and fragile environment.
Katharine Coles is spending the next two weeks at an Antarctic research station, gathering material for a forthcoming book and posting regular entries at artsandmuseums.utah.gov.
Coles, a professor of creative writing at the University of Utah, is the recipient of a National Science Foundation grant that brings artists and writers to U.S. research outposts on Antarctica. The purpose is to foster art that increases understanding of the Antarctic and helps document America's Antarctic heritage, according to the NSF website.
"The idea is that we are to maintain the scientific program and other aspects of the U.S. presence on Antarctica. One way to share and interpret the science for the public is through the medium of art," said Peter West, who coordinates NSF's Antarctic Artists and Writers Program.
In her first posting Tuesday, Coles described the four-day journey across Drake Passage between South America's Cape Horn and Antarctica's western tip, and admitted to choking up when she saw the Palmer research station on Anvers Island.
"I've been thinking about this for so long, for one thing, and for another the station looks very small and fragile against the hugeness of the glacier rising behind it," wrote Coles.
Past grant recipients include Utah author Chris Cokinos, who traveled to Antarctica in 2003 for his recent book about meteorites, photographer Lisa Blatt and graphic artist Michael Bartalos.
"My grant was to join the annual expedition called the Antarctic search for meteorites," Cokinos said. "I was there doing the things they were doing and taking a lot of notes. We spent a week at McMurdo, the main research station, then deployed to the field. That was a pretty interesting and intense experience at the South Pole. I was in a tent for five weeks. So Katie has it good. She'll have heat and a roof over her."
Meanwhile, a U. team of four mathematicians and engineers are based at McMurdo for the next two weeks, studying the electrical properties of sea ice.
Coles' proposal was one of about 10 chosen from a pool of 79 applicants to go this year and last year, according to West.
"The awardees are selected on a merit-review basis. It's very selective. Only a small percentage who apply get to go," West said.
Coles chose to visit Palmer because of its remote and dramatic geographical setting, the length and nature of the journey required to get there, the richness of its animal life, and the ecological research taking place there, according to her NSF proposal. The trip is intended to inform a series of poems for the book Natural Curiosities, which she is producing with artist Maureen O'Hara Ure.
"The purpose of the poems will be not only to bring a sense of the continent and its creatures to the reader but also to represent and consider the mind at work on what it sees, in the acts of exploration and passionate thinking [whether said exploration and thinking are artistic or scientific] related to Antarctica," she wrote in her proposal.
Katharine Colesin Antarctica
O You can follow the Utah poet laureate's adventures at the Palmer research station at artsandmuseums.utah.gov.