A microbiologist and a poet walk into a bar… The start not of an odd joke but of a dynamic creative partnership.

Tomorrow night (December 14), Vivo Media Arts Centre will be the venue for the truly multidisciplinary event The Science of Poetry, The Poetry of Science. On the card are five pairs of presenters, each made up of a scientist (among them a biochemist and a stem-cell researcher) and a practising poet. Each duo has been given the task of expressing a data-driven science in the shifting, often emotional language of verse.

It’s the brainchild of SFU communication graduate Aileen Penner, a devotee of both spheres. Penner’s work as a creative writer as well as a communications expert for tech- and science-based organizations has convinced her that each side benefits in unexpected ways from collaborating: poets wind up inspired by new insights into the workings of the world, while scientists find a powerful new way of talking about their detailed and often arcane pursuits.

It all starts at 7 p.m. Admission is free.