Thomas Lux

"This is what we've been working for," Thomas Lux said with a grin after being interviewed by U.S. News & World Report, which wanted to know if Georgia Tech really does teach students to write poetry.

Indeed, it does. Tech has one of the country's most aggressive poetry programs, Lux said.

"There is nothing at all antithetical about poetry and poetry writing in a technological environment," said Lux, who holds the Margaret T. and Henry C. Bourne Jr. chair in poetry in the School of Literature, Communication and Culture and is also director of the H. Bruce McEver visiting chair in writing and poetry at Tech.

Poetry and the sciences and engineering have a great deal in common, he said.

"The making of art, good art, whether it be poems, paintings or musical compositions, requires a kind of engineering, a kind of architecture and vast technical skills. Good art, historically, is made; it doesn't just happen — it's a result of planning, rigor, attention, intuition, trial and error, discipline and the luck that sometimes comes when all of the above are applied," Lux said.

Georgia Tech is among the top research and engineering institutions in the nation, and Lux said his mission is further national recognition as a science and technological environment where students are encouraged to widen their experiences with reading and writing poetry.

"It's poetry — all of the arts, really — that helps us cope with and understand the world around us. The arts allow us, and allow us access to, human expression, a precious and necessary freedom. Poetry, the act of making or reading a poem, is by nature an affirmative act, an act of creation and possibilities."

For a schedule of Poetry at Tech events, call (404)-385-1760 or go to
http://www.iac.gatech.edu/poetry.html.