“Poetry shouldn’t need to conform”
- Lucía Ballesteros
- Dec 12, 2025
- 10 min read
A conversation about science poetry with Sam Illingworth
Lucia Ballesteros spoke with Sam Illingworth, whose work sits at the intersection of science, poetry, and public engagement. In this interview, Illingworth reflects on his path through science and poetry and what this, at first unlikely, pairing can offer to science communication.
Trained in physics and atmospheric sciences, Illingworth began his career studying greenhouse gases from space, but soon discovered that poetry could reveal aspects of science that data alone cannot.
Illingworth is the founder of Consilience, the world’s first peer-reviewed journal of science and poetry, co-leads the Brilliant Poetry competition, runs The Poetry of Science blog and podcast, serves as Chief Executive Editor of Geoscience Communication, and teaches Creative Pedagogies at Edinburgh Napier University, to name just a few of his parallel projects.
Full disclosure: The scientist in me, trained to flag every possible source of bias, should note that I was taking Illingworth’s course on science communication and poetry while preparing this issue. So whether it was fate, bias, or poetic justice, inviting him for this conversation felt almost unavoidable.
You started out in academic research, studying environmental and atmospheric sciences. How did the move into science communication first begin for you, and what motivated that transition?