Private Words Addressed in Public: Carl Djerassi’s poetry at the science-to-humanities interface

Carl Djerassi wrote a group of 22 short poems at the start of his literary career, a few of which he repeatedly cited in his autobiographic books. While working to the Italian translation of Djerassi’s poems as a completely personal endeavour, I have tried to think of their meaning to a broader audience than aficionados and literary scholars. I will therefore describe the several points of contact I came to find between his novels and poems and some important and often unresolved issues of contemporary life, among which the use of scientific metaphors in common-life talk and the ethical training of scientists and technologists.