About this poem
This poem was inspired by thought experiments in physics which ask you to consider what happens in various extreme situations. Because these experiments are solely concerned with the physical and materialist aspects of the situation, they can’t take into account the feelings of the subjects being experimented on. And because these are thought experiments I’m not sure if it’s possible to separate the hypothetical subjects of those experiments from the real-life people thinking through the experiment – perhaps the experimentees and the experimenters merge somewhere in this poem.
This poem was included in Best Scottish Poems 2016. Best Scottish Poems is an online publication, consisting of 20 poems chosen by a different editor each year, with comments by the editor and poets. It provides a personal overview of a year of Scottish poetry. The editor in 2016 was Catherine Lockerbie.
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