Eric Elshtain

Homemaker, Teaching Poet, Field Museum Poet-in-Residence

[Verge Books @VergeBooksChi]

Verge poet Eric Elsthain will be reading with Brandon Kilbourne at 57th Street Books in Chicago on Friday, November 14 at 4PM.

https://t.co/sdeAVOeu1D

[Eric Elshtain @eric_elshtain]

For those in the Chicago Area, poetic science and scientific poetry. Friday November 14th, 4pm.
@57thstreetbooks

https://t.co/1cwSOxOIXL

@GraywolfPress
@VergeBooksChi

[Eric Elshtain @eric_elshtain]

@nicholascarrigg Not enough orange.

[Eric Elshtain @eric_elshtain]

@Freak0fNature__ Tough. But fair.

[Eric Elshtain @eric_elshtain]

@JoyceCarolOates Is "Rhyming" distinguishable from "rhyming"? Like "Catholic" versus "catholic"?

[Eric Elshtain @eric_elshtain]

@DepartureJay Thank you!

[Eric Elshtain @eric_elshtain]

Draft #20--composed and revised in the Field Museum's Hall of Birds--the real poem may well begin in stanza six...??

[Eric Elshtain @eric_elshtain]

@SUEtheTrex A true murder bird!

[Eric Elshtain @eric_elshtain]

@jorie_graham I attended a Fanny Howe lecture at the University of Chicago. We all sat at the stolid intellectual table. Howe pressed “play” on a boombox and she sat there silently reading along with a recording she made of her talk. It was confusing and delightful.

[Eric Elshtain @eric_elshtain]

Two about science/art and art/science. Of all the amazing aspects of the Field Museum, I think I have written most about the dioramas and Quetzalcoatlus...

[Eric Elshtain @eric_elshtain]

Three days, thirty cat poems. One of my favorites is about two cats named Spatula and Plunger. A few lines, based on the humans' description of the cats, read:

sometimes your minds seem
as inert as the objects
you're named after...

[Eric Elshtain @eric_elshtain]

@SketchesbyBoze As a poet, I humbly suggest that a firm understanding of simple mathematical, statistical, and scientific principles would be a great place to start... E.g., the difference between correlation and causation.

[Eric Elshtain @eric_elshtain]

@paleobyliam I remember seeing enormous earth-moving equipment at a coal site in Wyoming, thinking I'd finally seen a moving object akin to some of the biggest sauropods.

[Eric Elshtain @eric_elshtain]

Needs some revision--but a first draft of the possible origin story for a paleontologist.

[Eric Elshtain @eric_elshtain]

@DepartureJay "No man with a good car needs to be justified."

[Eric Elshtain @eric_elshtain]

New draft of a poem based on several conversations about birds with Field Museum visitors. Typed on my 1929 Smith Corona 4.

[Eric Elshtain @eric_elshtain]

@rod_lampard Is is possible that an equally divisive brand of identity politics is now embraced by certain corners of the Right?

[Eric Elshtain @eric_elshtain]

It's the Year of the Snake...so here's a snaky one.

[Eric Elshtain @eric_elshtain]

Thank you to Haley for her love of mollusks. We also had a fascinating discussion about Watergate and the historical patterns of distrust in government. That part of our conversation colored this poem in political tones.

[Eric Elshtain @eric_elshtain]

It's been a little while--but here's a poem written for a long-time Field Museum volunteer. Mary provided the content, I added an idea and sculpted it into a poem...