Physics and engineering teacher Ken Jones’ interest in poetry was first sparked during his time in college.

“[Poetry] chose me, I think,” Jones said. “Most of my friends were doing French or English or other things … and we were a tight group. There was just one time I was sitting down with them all, we were having coffee and stuff and I just jotted something down on a piece of paper and said, ‘What do you think of that?’ and they said, ‘Wow, that’s interesting, do you really feel that bad?’ I said, ‘No, actually I don’t, but I thought I’d write it.’”

Although he continued with his chemistry major, Jones said that poetry has maintained its presence throughout his life.

“I’ve written sporadically ever since,” Jones said. “[Although] there’ve been large chunks of my life where I haven’t written anything.”

From time to time, Jones finds that his subject matter of physics comes through in his poetry.

“With physics you can’t help but think about the enormity of the universe and nature of time and that sort of stuff and I … use it to think about how I feel about things,” Jones said.

But mainly, Jones said that his poems are about feeling.

““I’ve written a few about time, or a few that have time as a theme, but very few really,” Jones said. “They’re mostly just like every other poet would write — they’re about love, they’re about hurt, they’re about anguish, they’re about relationships, they’re about nature, they’re about whatever they’re about.”

One of his friends, a Buddhist, considers some of Jones’ poetry as “Zen”; Jones also likens his writing process to that of the impressionist painters.

“[Impressionist painters] would paint … the first impression and they thought that the first impression was the correct one, so they rarely changed it, and I do that too,” Jones said. “I write, I very rarely redraft or change … once I’ve written it down it normally stays how it’s written.”

In between classes filled with discussions of electrons, gravity and diffraction, Jones frequently meets with English teacher Kathy Schultheis during lunch to discuss his poetry.

“[Schultheis] was the one who outed me as a poet, to be honest,” Jones said. “I can’t remember how it happened, but I’d shown her one or two pieces that I’d written and she said, ‘I really like these — have you got more?’ So gradually I showed her more.”

The collaboration between the two started this school year. At Schultheis’s request, Jones also discussed his poetry with her classes. Jones said he was “blown away” by the questions and analysis proffered by the juniors.

“Some of the juniors who are also in my physics classes thought it was bad enough I gave them physics homework, and now I was giving them English homework,” Jones said. “You know, that was funny.”

Jones said he found that physics and poetry are complementary in answering the more philosophical questions about life.

“Whether you call it physics, metaphysics, Buddhism, philosophy, whatever you want to call it doesn’t really matter,” Jones said. “I think the interesting thing is that you’re just inquiring and trying to figure out about oneself and the world we live in really — whether that’s in a qualitative way or a science-descriptive way, I don’t know; it doesn’t matter, really.”