1 question
5 perspectives
1 collective inquiry
What happens when a poet, a mathematician, a philosopher and thinkers working across disciplines come together to investigate the source of creativity?
In this inaugural Polymath Circle, five participants explore the conditions through which creativity arises, takes form and becomes an experience that can be shared.
The Conversation
What is the source of creativity?
Is it inspiration,
attention, discipline, perception — or something that emerges
through
the relationship between them
within
consciousness?
Drawing on poetry, philosophy, mathematics, science, mythology and oral traditions from the West, East, and Africa, the conversation moves from the experience of observation to the making of a work, from artistic value to the possibility of teaching creativity.
Along the way, the Circle considers the poem as a dwelling, the poet as a builder of spaces for the mind, and language as a technology of perception. The conversation concludes by opening new questions about artificial intelligence and the future of human creativity.
Meet the Circle
DAVID CAPPS
Philosopher · Poet · Violinist
Drawing on philosophy, music, and his poetic practice, David considers how unstructured attention can open new possibilities for perception, the objectivity of aesthetic judgment, and poetry’s capacity to enlarge the self. Beyond orality, he also draws attention to the written poem as a carefully crafted form that readers can inhabit.
Loïc Yengo
Mathematician · Geneticist · Musician
Working across science, language and music, Loïc considers observation as a trained capacity and creative practice as a single work unfolding over time. His reflections on language as a tool for understanding the world — and on poets as builders of new mental spaces — open further questions about artistic education and the creative possibilities of AI.
VALENTIN GERLIER
Philosopher · Scholar · Musician
Valentin approaches poetry and orality as ways of knowing and being in the world. His work on William Blake informs his interest in the relationship between imagination, mythology and scientific thought, while his conception of poetry as an act of hospitality brings an ethical dimension to the Circle’s inquiry.
SOURAV SENGUPTA
Poet · Scholar
Drawing on Indian literary traditions and his background in architecture, Sourav considers the relationship between inspiration and discipline, artistic form and function, and the social and material conditions of creativity. His contributions raise fundamental questions about artistic value and the education of the poet.
Murielle Mobengo
Poet · Painter · Editor
Founder and moderator of Polymath Evenings, Murielle approaches creativity as an event in consciousness and poetry as a means of observing the self. Her reflections on artistic form, the transmission of inner experience and the education of the poet inform the Circle’s broader inquiry into poetry as a form of knowledge.
Explore the Conversation
16:11 – Learning to Observe
Can we learn to observe without determining in advance what we are going to see?
26:36 – Tradition, Discipline & Surprise
How do inherited forms and creative constraints make room for the unexpected?
46:34 – Can We Train a Poet?
What capacities would an education devoted to poetry and creative practice seek to cultivate?
1:16:17 – Poetry as Hospitality
What does it mean to give form to an experience so that another person may inhabit it?
1:43:36 – Poetic Language & Form
How do freedom, constraint and experimentation transform the possibilities of language?
2:06:49 – AI & the Future of Human Creativity
How might emerging technologies change creative practice and our understanding of what humans create?
Where the Circle Goes Next
The inaugural conversation opened several paths for further investigation: observation as a creative faculty, the architecture of the poem, the poet as a builder, the education of the poet, and the future of human creativity in the age of artificial intelligence.
The Circle plans to reconvene for Opus II in December 2026, continuing its collective inquiry through the questions generated by this first encounter.
About Polymath Evenings
Its aim is to cultivate a living culture of peers through collective inquiry, shared reflection and the exploration of questions that no single discipline can exhaust.
