NOAA offers some interesting insights in their “Poetry Corner“:
What do poetry, engineers, and scientists have in common? The NOAA Poetry Corner, home of weather poems, survey poems, and ocean poems written by the men and women who served in NOAA or its ancestor agencies. […] All these poems help tell the story of the people and the ancestor agencies of NOAA, showing a love for the work and a love for the environment in which the men and women of NOAA’s ancestor agencies worked….
Here is my favorite so far:
Oceanography is dangerous
by Arch E. Benthic, a.k.a. Harris B. Stewart
“The Id of the Squid,� 1970The Exec has spent two weeks in traction,
The Chief has a cut on his head,
The Doctor is missing in action
With a burn that has sent him to bed.
Various others have bruises
And legs and backs that are sore.
The dangerous parts of these cruises
Are the motorbikes ridden ashore.In: AOML Keynotes, Vol. 4, No. 5, pp. 1-4.
I don’t follow the squid reference, but the punch-line is funny. Wonder if NOAA pays a bonus for poems?