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��To live wonder-smitten with reality is the gladdest way to live�� writes Maria Popova. Think of the awestruck bliss of losing oneself in the vastness of a night sky alight in the twinkle from countless distant stars, the humbling majesty of a mountain range looming over the horizon before you, the beguiling depths of the ocean, the infinity of the cosmos, the magic of a perfectly tuned phrase striking chords on your heartstrings like a symphony. Bridging the intellectual, emotional, and spiritual awe of science and poetry comes The Universe in Verse: to Wonder Through Science & Poetry from Maria Popova. Imagine a galaxy awhirl in grammar, a sunrise as a sonnet, a verse unfolding like a map through genetic codes and you’ll arrive at something akin to the nearly ineffable beauty concocted here. Popova, the Bulgarian-born poet, essayist, and creator of Brain Pickings (which later became ) crafts cosmic joy through her poetic examinations of science under a spotlight of poetic insights from a lovely range of poets. Pairing scientific discoveries, theories, and events with poems from writers like Tracy K. Smith, Mary Ruefle, W.H. Auden, Jane Hirshfield, Marie Howe, or Edna St. Vincent Millay, among others, and with stellar artwork from by , this is a delightful collection that looks at how, in our ��yearning for permanence in a cosmos governed by incessant change,�� science and poetry are similarly paired as tools for understanding the human condition and the world around us.

��When we come to it
We, this people, on this wayward, floating body
Created on this earth, of this earth,
Have the power to fashion for this earth
A climate where every man and every woman
Can live freely without sanctimonious piety
Without crippling fear

When we come to it
We must confess that we are the possible
We are the miraculous, the true wonder of this world
That is when, and only when
We come to it.
��Maya Angelou from

Popova comes strong with gorgeous prose in this collection of 15 creative nonfiction essays on science and poetry. She looks into scientific discoveries amd inventions we have ��hanging as eternal beauty / in our collective memory�� as Maya Angelou wrote, essays on the beauty of the natural world full of plants, mountains, rivers, and ��all this resinous, unretractable earth�� (Jane Hirshfield), or even the beauty of math such as Wisława Szymborska’s about, ��the admirable number�� π (Pi). This blessed union of science, language, and art hones in on the fragile beauty of life and our tiny role in a greater cosmos. But also the tinier lives of microbes and flowers, or incredible creatures and locales that seem almost mythical such as the depths of the ocean where ��there / the octopus / godless and possible / lives.�� Popova’s commentary is exquisite, such as in her discussion on flowers as examined by Emily Dickinson and her poem poem where ��To be a Flower, is profound / Responsibility,�� becomes a message about a greater understanding of life:

��Suddenly, the flower emerges not as this pretty object to be admired, like it had been throughout the canon of Victorian poetry, but as this ravishing system of aliveness—a kind of silent symphony of interconnected resilience.��

There are some rather ingenious pairings here and the book is rather impressively sourced in order to craft each short essay. There are discussions on entropy, first coined by German physicist , and the ��thermodynamic collapse of physical systems into increasing levels of disorder and uncertainty,�� the force that makes ��lovers and thinkers�� eventually ��one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust�� as Edna St. Vincent Millay wrote. But, as Popova points out, this acceptance of death and loss is a major force in poetry and, besides, ��without entropy there would be no time—at least not for us, creatures of time.�� There is beauty in rot, she observes. Such as the life of mushrooms which, as Popova writes, ��were the first to colonize the Earth.�� She cleverly pairs this with the Sylvia Plath poem , a ��quietly mischievous work of genius, paying homage to the indomitable nature of the creative spirit, and considers the sadness that there have been breakthroughs with using mushrooms to treat depression, ��a breakthrough [Plath] never lived to see.��

There are discussion on Euclid and geometry, the poetry of angles, or the tale of and her work on the x-ray ambulance that would save countless lives while ��not knowing she herself was dying.�� This is paired with the poem by Adrienne Rich about the Polish Nobel Prize winning physicist who ��died a famous woman denying / her wounds / denying / her wounds came from the same source as her power.�� Though my favorite, perhaps, was the contrast on the indifference of stars, as W.H. Auden wrote in where ��looking up at the stars, I know quite well / That, for all they care, I can go to hell�� with that of Tracy K. Smith’s about her father working on the Hubble Telescope. Smith describes the shock and awe of the first photos: ��We saw to the edge of all there is,�� Smith wrote, ��so brutal and alive it seemed to comprehend us back.�� But Popova’s words are just as poetic as the poets she sights, such as in her discussion on Rebecca Elson’s poem :

��Permeating Elson’s lyrical meditations on the nature of reality, mortised and tenoned with life and love, the mystery of dark matter culminates in one particular poem exploring with uncommon loveliness what may be the most touching paradox of being human—creatures of matter in a cosmos governed by the dark sublime of endless entropy, longing for the light of immortality, longing to return to the singularity so that everything may begin again.��

Let There Always Be Light
(Searching for Dark Matter)
��Rebecca Elson

For this we go out dark nights, searching
For the dimmest stars,
For signs of unseen things:

To weigh us down.
To stop the universe
From rushing on and on
Into its own beyond
Till it exhausts itself and lies down cold,
Its last star going out.

Whatever they turn out to be,
Let there be swarms of them,
Enough for immortality,
Always a star where we can warm ourselves.

Let there even be enough to bring it back
From its own edges,
To bring us all so close that we ignite
The bright spark of resurrection.

Sure, this book is a bit brief for the hardcover list price, but it does have some gorgeous artwork and some rather enchanting discussions. I just love the blending of history and poetry and the discussions on it that Popova brings to The Universe In Verse. This is a clever and well crafted collection that is as charming as it is enlightening and educational. And that is a big win.

4/5