No Filter

Rivka Isaacson

Are you an heiress? 
Me? I grew up underfoot,
Heads smashed together,
Doors slammed shut.
Eking out shoe leather.
Deep fat fryer on the go,
Till the oil’s a thick black throwback to crude. 
Carpet threadbare on the folds of the stairs. 
Joined at the hip to a curdling hot water bottle. 
A legacy that won’t be monetised; 
But left me with a strong immune system, 
And a relaxed attitude to headlice. 

Oh, it was just that I Googled you to find some details for the form, and your portrait
in oils stared out at me. You’re still okay to be the external examiner? 
Yes, sure - it was for social mobility,
Widen-ingly participatory,
Role-model visibility.
Outreach, engagement, equality, diversity, inclusion. 
You could join in too – should I pass along your name? 
It’s an odd feeling, 
Being scrutinised from every angle,
While dabs and strokes shock a page into chiaroscuro,
And you’re immortalised in two dimensions -
Like an heiress. 

The Science

This poem plays into dual definitions of Emergence. The beginning charts the evolution of identity from fragments of formative factors, focusing on nurture rather than nature. The incident that inspired it, as revealed in the second section, stemmed from a public engagement portrait painting project which combined artists’ and scientists’ ways of working to create a multifaceted message to the next generation about the creativity of science, the technical precision of art, and the wonders that emerge from keeping them together. 

The Poet

Rivka Isaacson is associate dean for doctoral studies and reader in chemical biology in the faculty of natural, mathematical, and engineering sciences at King’s College London. Her research uses biophysics techniques to investigate quality control mechanisms within the crowded cell and she is involved in many projects at the interface between sciences and arts. She is a long-time avid consumer of poetry and her poems have featured in South Bank Poetry, the Independent on Sunday, and Mslexia’s advent series.

Next poem: No Two Snowflakes by Benjamin WC Rosser