Diane Ackerman

“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

“There is a youthful exuberance to these poems, a lilting, witty, sensuous, wondrous cosmic meander sung like the pastoral of its title. Nature is her mirror and her measure.”

—MIT Technology Review

About Diane

Poet, essayist, and naturalist, Diane Ackerman is the author of over two dozen highly acclaimed works of nonfiction and poetry, including the New York Times bestsellers The Zookeeper's Wife, A Natural History of the Senses, and The Human Age — books beloved by millions of readers all over the world. In prose so rich and evocative that one can feel the earth turning beneath one's feet as one reads, Ackerman's thrilling observations urge us to live in the moment, and to wake up to nature's everyday miracles.

Full Bio

Praise for Diane's Work

“Diane Ackerman’s vivid writing, inexhaustible stock of insights, and unquenchable optimism have established her as a national treasure, and as one of our great authors. If you’ve read any of her previous books, you already know why you’ll love this latest one. If you haven’t read her previous books, you’re now about to become addicted to Diane Ackerman.”

—Jared Diamond on The Human Age

"Diane Ackerman has produced a stunning book of poetry in The Planets, the result of a year's immersion in the recent findings in planetary astronomy. The work is scientifically accurate and even a convenient introduction to modern ideas on the planets, but much more important, it is spectacularly good poetry, clear, lyrical and soaring... 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, The New Republic

“Ackerman has an admirable ability to keep the observing eye firmly within the frame of each of these highly-colored poems . To a remarkable degree, she succeeds by referring each abstraction, speculation, bit of planetary data to some dense, sensual, or just plain fundamental experience she has had.The cumulative effect is that of a small, beautifully arranged museum of solar artifacts, where everything tells and more than a few things instruct and delight.”

—Kirkus Reviews

"Vivid, playful, abundant, her poems constitute a directory of colors, an assembly of weathers, waters, creatures, and a bold, brash, invincible vote of confidence."

—Anthony Hecht

"Ackerman takes the American language to school and lets it graduate with her own unique mintage. Her poems reveal a woman of sensitivity, restraint, ingenuity, and passionate daring."

—The Hudson Review

“Our candidate for the year’s most impressive debut in poetry between hard covers. She uses the entire solar system for her audition piece.”

—Knight News Service

“A scintillating cartography of the major planets and asteroids in easily assimilated verse forms that return the poet to earth to delve into the awesome magnetism of space . . . An important work by a new poet.”