A research biologist most recently at the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin, Brandon Kilbourne illuminates the intersections between science and poetry in poems that demonstrate the wonder, curiosity, and precision required by both disciplines. 

Natural History, Kilbourne's first book of poetry, opens by confronting the hidden histories within the study of biology and its links to colonialism, including the revelation that European scientists used slave ships to transport specimens from Africa and the Americas back to Europe. Across the collection, Kilbourne describes how these histories of exploitation are still reflected in dioramas of elephants, rhinoceroses, and African people displayed in natural history museums. Other poems narrate the intricate work of studying fossils, and a longer sequence recounts an expedition above the Arctic Circle to recover evidence of how a fish’s fins gave rise to the diversity of limbs found among amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals.

This event will feature book sales by the Raven Book Store.

This event is sponsored by the KU Biodiversity Institute and Natural History Museum, the Spencer Museum of Art, the Museum Studies Program, the Office of Sovereign Partnerships and Indigenous Initiatives, the Environmental Studies Program, the Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, and The Commons.