Engaging the head and the heart: why scientists turn to poetry
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Researcher-poets use verse to help to ease isolation and grief, sing the praises of nature or depict the joys of commuting by bicycle.Credit: WeBond Creations/Getty
Last year, in a moving family farewell celebration, palliative-care physician and researcher Danielle Chammas said goodbye to a long-time patient with cancer. When Chammas came home afterwards, she wrote a poem. Her Defiance, which was later published in the journal JAMA Oncology, describes the woman as “the leaf clinging fiercely to the tree” (D. Chammas JAMA Oncol. 12, 215; 2026).
With family at bedside,/ and the beau’s guitar/ filling the room,/ the leaf released the tree,/ and she knew,/ for the briefest of moments,/ what it meant to fly.
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