Emergence of alcohols

Stephen Paul Wren

For Francois Auguste Victor Grignard (1871–1935)

Aboard the
brinkmanship.
Coiled solid,
dear ribbon,
ether wet,
fever pitch.
Grab alkyl
halides then
insane spume.

Jolt, impel.
Knife ketones,
leap over
marsh-solvent,
near the top
of sparkles.
Power down.
Quiet comes
rising up.

See the new
tour de force.
Undress a
viscount of
works; ols form.
X marks the
yielding spot.
Zest for spills.

The Science

This poem is a tribute to Grignard, a chemist who won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1912 for his discovery of Grignard reagents. The poem lightly describes the action of one type of Grignard reagent (formed by magnesium ribbon inserting into a carbon-halogen bond of alkyl halides). Addition of the reagent to chemicals known as ketones can be used to prepare alcohols (referred to as 'ols', in the poem, because all alcohols end in this suffix). Thus, we can envisage alcohols emerging from a mixture in solution as such as reaction progresses. I have employed the abecedarian form for this poem. Abecedarians are poems in which the first letter of each line or stanza follows the alphabet: A, then B, and so on. I have employed an extra constraint as well; each line is composed on three syllables, reflecting the natural order that chemical reactions adhere to. Organic chemists can reliably predict the outcome of so-called Grignard reactions.

The Poet

Dr Stephen Paul Wren studied at Cambridge and worked in industry for many years. He transitioned back into academia at Oxford before joining Kingston University in 2018 where he works as a Senior lecturer. Stephen’s poetry can be read at www.stephenpaulwren.wixsite.com/luke12poetry and you can find him on Twitter @Stephen34343631. His book Formulations (co-written with Dr Miranda Lynn Barnes) was published by Small Press in 2022. His A celestial crown of Sonnets (co-written with Dr Sam Illingworth) was published by Penteract Press in 2021. Stephen's poetry has appeared in 14 magazine, Marble Broadsheet, Consilience, Tears in the Fence, and Dreich magazine.

Next poem: Everything Takes Time by Patricia Hemminger