The Poetry of Stone

Within the Stone

As any gemologist knows, gemstones stimulate both the right and left brain. Their beauty may inspire poetry but they also serve as evidence of the patterns and structures to be discovered in the natural world. Bill Atkinson knows something about the intersection of art and science: at Apple Computer, he designed much of the initial Macintosh user interface and wrote the original QuickDraw, MacPaint, and HyperCard software. Today, he is a full-time nature photographer. His new book, Within the Stone, pairs 72 stunning images of ornamental gemstones with poetry and essays inspired by each mineral landscape. The contributors, who treat the intricate patterns in each stone as Rorschach blots, are a talented group of overachievers themselves: Diane Ackerman, poet and psychologist; Philip Ball, Nature editor and dramatist; John Horgan, science writer and philosopher; Andrew Revkin, New York Times reporter and screenwriter; Dorion Sagan, science writer and novelist; Tyler Volk, NASA biologist and architect; and David Zindell, science fiction novelist and mathematician. And the book has its own science to match the artistry of the photos: in an appendix, mineralogy experts Si & Ann Frazier and Robert Hutchinson provide mineral commentary for each specimen.

34 Comments to "The Poetry of Stone"

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