SOURCE: "The Two Cultures at the End of the Twentieth Century: An Essay on Poetry and Science," in The Midwest Quarterly, Vol. XXXV, No. 2, Winter, 1994, pp. 121-35.

In the following essay, Cherry emphasizes the importance of communication between poets and scientists.

In an essay first published in The New Statesman in 1956 and later included in a series of lectures delivered at Cambridge University, C. P. Snow said of himself, "By training I was a scientist; by vocation I was a writer. .. . It was a piece of luck, if you like, that arose through coming from a poor home." I, too, came from a poor home, though it was an educated home, and my parents, who were string quartet violinists, thought that economic salvation would lie in having one of their children turn out to be a scientist. I never got further than a hodgepodge of introductory science courses...