The Universe in Verse

September 1, 2024
Essayist and cultural critic Popova collaborates with an award-winning illustrator to explore how poetry and science offer interconnected ways of "knowing the world more intimately and loving it more deeply." With its emphasis on emotion and feeling, poetry would at first seem the polar opposite of science, an endeavor that seeks to understand "the fundamental nature of reality." But for Popova, the two are closely related--if not intertwined--in their shared preoccupation with the search for truth. In this book, she creates a genre-defying literary and visual experience for curious minds. Each section centers on stories taken from the history of science, which Popova links to poems by the likes of Maya Angelou, Diane Ackerman, and Sylvia Plath. In "Flowers and the Birth of Ecology," for example, she muses on the improbable rise of flowers in the Cretaceous era and the color and life they brought to the planet. The fruits--and specifically, the sugars in the fruits--that evolved with the flowers gave rise to mammals. Among the new species to emerge were the ancestors of the humans who would probe the workings of nature. One, German marine biologist Ernst Haeckel, would coin the termecology. Popova follows this essay with "Bloom," a poem by Haeckel's 19th-century contemporary Emily Dickinson that celebrates the ecological interdependence of insects and flowers. Popova adds drama to this and every other essay/poetry pairing through the addition of bold yet delicately poetic artwork created by co-author Amit. The result is a thought-provoking, aesthetically stunning volume that will appeal to a broad range of readers. A feast of stories, ideas, and beauty for the mind and heart.

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October 15, 2024
Popova, who writes about her reading and "reckoning with our search for meaning" online at The Marginalian, continues her inspired excavations at the intersection of science and poetry--both "instruments for knowing the world more intimately and loving it more deeply"--in book form, shifting from the splendid abundance of Figuring (2019) to elegant pairings of her pithy essays with poems by an array of poets accompanied by imaginative images by award-winning illustrator Amit. Popova begins with the beginning, the Big Bang singularity, and an electrifying riff by Marie Howe. On to flowers and Emily Dickinson, and stars in poems by W. H. Auden, the "child of a physicist," and Tracy K. Smith, whose engineer father worked on the Hubble Space Telescope. Popova reflects on the struggles and breakthroughs of women scientists, showcases poems by Sylvia Plath, Diane Ackerman, and Jane Hirshfield, and aligns the famous Pale Blue Dot photograph of Earth with a mighty poem by Maya Angelou that everyone should know, "A Brave and Startling Truth." With creativity, verve, and intention, Popova, erudite and clarion, beautifully accomplishes her mission to inspire wonder.

COPYRIGHT(2024) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.