The Planets: A Cosmic Pastoral

by Diane Ackerman, Maria Popova (Foreword)

From Marginalian Editions comes a gorgeous reissue of celebrated poet, essayist, and naturalist Diane Ackerman’s debut a whimsical and wonderful ode to our solar system, planet to planet, blending science and imagination, astronomy and cosmology, as well as fantasy, satire, myth, confession, and bawdiness galore.


First published in 1973, The A Cosmic Pastoral introduced not only a splendid new poet but a whole new adventure in poetry. With bravura style, unbridled imagination, and a connoisseur's eye for precise scientific detail, Diane Ackerman gives us an unforgettable ode to each of the planets in our solar system, as well as for the moon, the comet Kohoutek, asteroids, and strange voyages to the stars, the bottom of the sea, through the human body, and into the mind.


But The Planets is more than a book of poetry. It is also a major work on the solar system, illustrated with drawings and photographs of the galaxy. Diane Ackerman herself “I’ve always been baffled by people who write about nature only in terms of, say, junipers and cornfields, eschewing all things so-called ‘scientific,’ as if science were, per se, the spoil-sport of feeling. So wonderless a view of nature really doesn’t appeal to me; I don’t see the Universe divided up that way, into ‘The Junipers’ on the one hand and ‘The Amino Acids’ on the other.” Astronomy, fantasy, satire, myth, confession and bawdiness meet imagination and lyrical sweep to create this enticing collection, the world of The Planets.

Genres: Poetry

176 pages, Hardcover

Published February 24, 2026

About the author

Diane Ackerman has been the finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Nonfiction in addition to many other awards and recognitions for her work, which include the bestsellers The Zookeeper’s Wife and A Natural History of the Senses.

The Zookeeper’s Wife, a little known true story of WWII, became a New York Times bestseller, and received the Orion Book Award, which honored it as, "a groundbreaking work of nonfiction." A movie of The Zookeeper’s Wife, starring Jessica Chastain and Daniel Brühl, releases in theaters March 31st, 2017 from Focus Features.

She lives with her husband Paul West in Ithaca, New York.

Reviews

[Tessa Berman]

Wow, wow, wow; this was absolutely stunning! Ackerman truly delivered an epic waltz through the solar system with poetic and scholarly precision! Though the middle of the book is more painterly and slows a bit, I didn’t mind the change in perspective or pace at all because the voice was IMMACULATE! “Pluto” alone makes this an inarguable five star collection for me! “My need to know yammers / like a wild thing in its den.” Like, come on?! Beautiful words and evocative phrasing throughout. A cult classic for MFA divas who almost got science PhDs instead!

[Lexi]

4.5 stars

At long last! A poetry collection I thoroughly enjoyed!!

Specific things I liked (and, as a note to self, should seek out in future collections)
- Strong theming (space is just cool, you know?)
- Longer poems broken into sections
- Interesting formatting (e.g. I had to turn my book sideways to read the Uranus section)
- Vivid imagery
- Words that sound nice together even if/when I don't know what they mean

Maybe this is a one off phenomenon, but it would be cool if I could find other poetry that made me feel the way this book did

[coco's reading]

4.5 stars.

Did I always understand the science or even the vocabulary, even with the notes and glossary? Nope. But there was something about the poems in The Planets that I could feel vibrating around inside my chest, this sense of wonder and at times bewilderment when faced with the sheer scope of our universe—and our smallness in it. Also, shout-out to Pluto: you'll always and forever be a planet in my heart.

Luckily, a species of mind has evolved to be the weight-bearer of wonder: the poet.

I'm young as I write this and green,
and yet in my lifetime we'll never
sail beyond Pluto, or cut time
on the bias in a black hole in space,
even leave the twirl of woodash
that's our Milky Way.

[BooksRgood]

I love the planets, the solar system and how they make me feel both small and large. I love poetry too, especially when I feel like I understand it, and it does the same things. A combo of the two! I heard about this book of poems a few years ago but was unable to get my hands on a copy and suddenly the wonderful Ms Popova had a hand (the hand?) in getting it republished.

As usual, in books of poems, there was plenty here that I read and then scratched my head. Plenty too that went right through me to a place we can sometimes get to, to be big and small and all the things.

Here are a couple of excerpts:

From ‘Diffraction’ (for Carl Sagan)

Knee-deep in the cosmic overwhelm,
I'm stricken by the ricochet wonder of it all: the plain

everythingness of everything, in cahoots
That with the everythingness of everything else.

From ‘Earth IV. Inventory’

Imagine, we live in a world
so riotously packed
with buzz, bloom, burn and fidget,
we actually tend
To find Quiet freakish,
Calm, ominous, prolonged
Stillness, death-defying.
Why, you’d think
one would never cotton
to anything, never grow
bored, not succumb to habit,
but only craze slowly
from terminal surprise.

[Shawn]

This is a book of poetry. Now, I'm not generally a big poetry reader, but am interested in the planets and love the good work of Maria Popova, who reintroduced Diane Ackerman's poems from the 1970's into the world. These astronomical poems of each planets and a few extra celestial bodies drew me in, absorbed me in delicious language, giving pause and perhaps a prayerful attendance to cosmic relevance of our neighbors... and yes there is a poem about Earth.

[Tina]

I love this collection of smart, beautiful, awe inspiring poems. I was so happy to see it republished because I wanted to give copies to two of my friends. I am, however, disappointed that the reprinting does not include the black and white photos of the planets which were in the original publication. I do love the new forward, but why no photos😢 Thank you Diane Ackerman for something so dazzling

[TL Thomas]

I appreciate the effort (originally published in 1976) to have scientifcally accurate poems about the planets and universe. I just couldn't get into them at all. This is a me problem, I'm sure, poetry can be a struggle. But even for that, the poems here just didn't connect in any way for me.

[Gray]

"one day we'll browse in the stacks of other galaxies"

I'm not sure what I expected, but it wasn't this. Often beautiful, sometimes rambling, frequently strange, Planets was an intense poetic journey. I think I will have to return to these poems many times.

[Arnold Grot]

It is appropriate that The Planetary Society choose the book for its Book Club March selection. The narrator wrote “Mentored by Carl Sagan, Diane created a series of deeply insightful, wonderfully entertaining poems devoted to the worlds of our solar system. "One of the triumphs of Ackerman's pastoral is the demonstration of how closely compatible planetary exploration and poetry, science and art really are."—Carl Sagan” Sagan was on of the founders of The Planetary Society 46 years ago.

Particularly enjoyed Uranus as I lived a few years in Salem, MA around the time the Witches Museum was founded, and I had just finished reading "How to Kill a Witch: The Patriarchy's Guide to Silencing Women" by Zoe Venditozzi and Claire Mitchell. I noticed that Acherman had written "The Zookeepers' Wife" describing how the Nazis devastated Warsaw—and the city's zoo along with it. Fascinating stories of living in wartime fear

[fishinthesun]

A Halley’s Comet of literary prowess.

[Olivia Crowder]

r.i.p. Pluto