Thanks for the contributions, especially that buy Geoff 21.

I'm reminded of how I first came across RD's works.

My older brother had a copy of The Selfish Gene (TSG) which he lent me. I was in high school at the time and found if hard-going. I then came across River Out of Eden in a second hand bookshop, one of Richard's least appreciated but excellent books -- especially as an intro to Evolution.

If I remember well, there is a poem in that book that struck me and made me want to read the book even more; a poem that was my way-in to science.

And from my pillow, looking forth by light

Of moon or favouring stars, I could behold

The antechapel where the statue stood

Of Newton with his prism and silent face,

The marble index of a mind for ever

Voyaging through strange seas of Thought, alone. William Wordsworths' The Prelude.

Wouldn't such a poem be a great preface to an exposition on what modern science has to say about "light of moon", about photons, about opitics, about the "seas of thought" or neuroscience of the brain?

I think it would be, and many people would in this way be introduced to both elements of science and poetry and the poetry of science.

(p.s apologies for some of the typos in the OP)