To Make a Nature Poem III by Tom Mirovski

In this methodology, I sought to scramble the word order of a nature poem using an organism's
DNA. I aimed to turn an excerpt from the pastoral poetry of Virgil, which describes man's
mastery over nature, into a new text that methodologically forces an artistic collaboration
between man and nature (Fig 4, 5).

Until Jove let it be, no colonist

Mastered the wild earth; no land was marked,
None parceled out or shared; but everyone
Looked for his living in the common world.
And Jove gave poison to the blacksnakes, and
Made the wolves ravage, made the ocean roll,
Knocked honey from the leaves, took fire away-So man might beat out various inventions
By reasoning and art.
First he chipped fire
Out of the veins of flint where it was hidden;
Then rivers felt his skiffs of the light alder;
Then sailors counted up the stars and named them:
Pleiades, Hyades, and Pole Star;
Then were discovered ways to take wild things.
In snares, or hunt them with the circling pack;
And how to whip a stream with casting nets,
Or draw the deep-sea fishermans cordage up;
And then the use of steel and the shrieking saw;
Then various crafts. All things were overcome
By labor and by force of bitter need.
Figure 4: Excerpt from Georgics I, by Virgil.

Jove, of common art and bitter might,

out-chipped fire by the stars. Jove named the stars,
but the alder honey, all steel, mastered
the shrieking skiffs so might the stars stream wild ways.
Counted, circling, counted, then Reasoning
counted, shrieking his wild world ways.
Then with then. Rivers to rivers. Pleaides wild
was honey, wild poison with poison.
Sailors poison things. The common was poison,
with with and ways. Made Pleaides beat common
rivers, beat out, beat out poison.
Pleaides saw wild things beat sailors. Pleaides then
was hunted. Light saw the wild Reasoning
counted to the first. Up the poison, draw
out steel; fire in might. Pleaides then, the ravaged,
made ways with ways. Shattered stars up to fire
streams, living, shrieking. Jove, shrieking, snared,
bitter, took away inventions with might. Stars might.
Blacksnakes draw, wolves draw with need. Living things then;
So pack up man. The wild then saw Hyades.
Figure 5: A Collaboration. The final nature poem produced by
Virgil, Tom Mirovski, and Aspergillus niger specie of mold.
The species of organism used in this method was the mold found growing on the incubated
books from To Make a Nature Poem I, identified as Aspergillus niger using modern sequencing
technology. From the NCBI database, I retrieved the DNA sequence of a protein studied in A.
niger, and from the Protein Data Bank a schematic of the 3D shape of the protein. This
"Xylanase" protein, which allows A. niger to decompose plant matter, is currently being
investigated as an alternative to the bleaching chemicals used in the paper pulping industry.
Within the simultaneously deconstructive and constructive method, I found it fascinating to use
an organism that can degrade a book by its growth as well as produce a book through the
biotechnological use of its enzymes.

To begin the method, I distributed the words of the poem to three letter combinations of a, c, t,
and g DNA building blocks, such as atg and ttt. In the cell, these three letter arrangements,
known as "codons," are used in the conversion between DNA and protein. This method utilizes
the 64 codons appearing within the DNA to scramble the original text. I matched the first codon
appearing in the standard DNA codon table, ttt, to the first word of the poem, "until." I then
matched the second codon, ttc, to the second word appearing in the poem, "Jove," repeating this
process until every word of the poem had been matched up with a codon. In the end, every codon
had been matched up with two or three words from the original poem (Fig 6).
Codon
TTT
TTC
TTA
TTG

Word 1
Until
Jove
let
it

Word 2
art
first
he
chipped

Word 3
or
draw
the
deep-sea

Figure 6: Examples of Codon-word Matches. I distributed an excerpt from the Georgics I text to
each of the 64 DNA codons, resulting in two to three words matched to each codon.

I utilized these codon-word matches to scramble the original text. Below is the process
conducted on the first sentence of the new poem. First, I examined the DNA sequence of the
Xylanase protein from Aspergillus niger.
GCG GCT TTT GCA AGT CTC TTG CTT ACG GCC
I then substituted each of the codons with their corresponding words. Relying upon my own
artistic impulses and word associations, as well as the context of the original poem, I chose only
one word from each codon to construct a new sentence:
(GCG) Jove named need (GCT) common the force (TTT) until art or (GCA) bitter and (AGT)
might how (CTC) no out cordage (TTG) it chipped deep-sea (CTT) be fire fishermans (ACG)
the up by (GCC) world stars of
I slightly edited this sentence by adding articles and punctuation:
Jove, of common art and bitter might, out-chipped fire by the stars.
To further inform the construction of these sentences, I examined the 3D structure of Xylanase.
The building blocks of the protein interact with each other to form smaller shapes known as
secondary structures, with three general types. I interpreted these turns, helixes, and beta strands
as poetic devices, using these devices to inform the ways I construct the sentences (Fig 7).

Turn

Alpha Helix

Beta Strand

Protein

A portion of the protein

that exhibits a bend.

A coil or spiral stabilized by

interactions between the
protein building blocks.

Poetry

A shift in the
perspective or tone of
the narrator.

A return; a moment of
intensification; a coiling of
thought.

A linear strand of the

protein interacts with
similarly linear portions of
the protein to form a sheet.
Crossing over, repetition, or
interaction.

Figure 7: Protein Structures as Poetic Devices. Both proteins and poems share the "turn" as a
common structure. Based on their molecular structure, I interpreted the helix as a moment of
intensification or spiraling, and the beta strand as a moment of interaction.

For instance, observing a repeated codon in the DNA sequence and reading over the possible
word choices I could make, I felt prompted to apply the "beta strand" device and construct the
sentence to express repetition:
ACA CGC ACA TCC GGA ACA GTG ACT ATC GCC AAC
(ACA) in counted and (CGC) away circling (ACA) in counted and (TCC) out felt then (GGA)
reasoning casting (ACA) in counted and (GTG) none then shrieking (ACT) his then by (ATC)
wild of the (GCC) world stars of (AAC) ravage ways
Counted, circling, counted, then reasoning counted, shrieking his wild world ways.
I categorized the sentences according to the protein-literary devices that inspired them, for
instance, grouping together the text that express a turn. To organize these sentences into a larger
poem, I chose a sequence of the protein with as many building blocks as the lines of the poem
and all three poetic-literary devices. The schematic of this sequence shows the secondary
structure each building block participates in; I interpreted this schematic, associating a device
with each line of the poem (Fig 8). I then returned to the sentences, deciding their order in the
poem based on the device associated with each line.

Diagram
of
Secondary
Structure

Secondary
Structure

Altered Poem

Beta strand

Jove, of common art and bitter might,

out-chipped fire by the stars. Jove named the stars,
but the alder honey, all steel, mastered
Alpha helix the shrieking skiffs so might the stars stream wild ways.
Counted, circling, counted, then Reasoning
counted, shrieking his wild world ways.
Then with then. Rivers to rivers. Pleaides wild
Beta strand was honey, wild poison with poison.
Sailors poison things. The common was poison,
with with and ways. Made Pleaides beat common
rivers, beat out, beat out poison.
Pleaides saw wild things beat sailors. Pleaides then
Turn
was hunted. Light saw the wild Reasoning
counted to the first. Up the poison, draw
out steel; fire in might. Pleaides then, the ravaged,
made ways with ways. Shattered stars up to fire
Beta Strand streams, living, shrieking. Jove, shrieking, snared,
bitter, took away inventions with might. Stars might.
Blacksnakes draw, wolves draw with need. Living things then;
So pack up man. The wild then saw Hyades.
Figure 8: A Technical Collaboration. To construct the final poem, I attempted to negotiate

between the original meaning of the text, the scrambled word order imposed by the DNA
sequence, poetic devices interpreted from the 3D shape of the protein, and my own artistic
impulse.
In future experiments, more biologically informed decisions will be investigated to direct the
codon-word matching. I also plan to utilize texts with pre-existing biological relations. For
instance, German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche famously suffered from health issues, such as
syphilis. Excerpts from his books can be scrambled according to a protein expressed by
Treponema pallidum bacteria, which causes syphilitic infections. Another possible poem may
involve scrambling British artist David Bowie's song lyrics according to chameleon DNA; he is
often described as a "musical chameleon" due to his genre-bending work.