I Praise My Destroyer: Poems [Hardcover]

Diane Ackerman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 31, 1998

Diane Ackerman's poems reveal her intense response to the several worlds of nature, science, and society. Her lyricism fuses wit and sobriety, meditation and activism, and she confronts us with figures both real and fantastic.

As always, her strong connection with the natural world, the realms of language and literature, myth and imagination, combines with her deep understanding of the sciences to offer her readers a singular American voice. This is not a voice crying in the wilderness, but one that gives forth songs of joy and wonder.

Organized into seven sections, including "Timed Talk," "By Atoms Moved," and "Tender Mercies," I Praise My Destroyer is less an assorted collection than an organically coherent whole, one that reveals Ackerman's true calling as a twentieth-century metaphysical poet of the highest order.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

In her first book of poems since the splendid Jaguar of Sweet Laughter (1991), naturalist Ackerman expresses her signature love for the world in all its seething glory, but there is new strength here, an edge freshly honed. Yet her sensuality is still in full force as she writes voluptuously about apricots, water, and sky and wears poetic forms like silk dresses that sway and cling in perfect accord to the stride of her lines. Her metaphors are piquant and her humor mischievous, but still there is an intimation of struggle, and that infuses these wholly original poems with an air of valor, vitality, and wisdom. She writes--with wit, warmth, and gratitude--about the "timed talk" of therapy, the fire and darkness of love, and, strikingly, of friendships between women. If one poem had to stand for her ardent awareness, poetic adeptness, erudition, profound insights into nature, and all-embracing spirit, it would be "When the Deep Purple Falls," a thousand-word sentence about a day-long bicycle ride around a lake, a brilliant meditation on the cycle of time, life and death, and the perpetual turnings of the heart. Donna Seaman

From Kirkus Reviews

Long before she became well-known as a prose writer (A Natural History of the Senses, 1990, etc.), Ackerman had published volumes of verse that reflected her keen interest in science and the natural world. In this, her sixth collection, she clutters her work with unappealing displays of ego and a fascination with the mythology of herself that together distract from her otherwise splendid, more impersonal celebrations of ``natural wonders'' and ``tender mercies.'' After ``humbly'' proclaiming her roles as guardian, healer, messenger, and architect, Ackerman praises ``life's bright catastrophes,'' elegizing Carl Sagan in a poem that remembers the good old days, before the two of them were ``basking on the Riviera of fame.'' In a handful of poems, Ackerman mocks therapists ``timed talk'' and insensitivitycompared to herswhile reminding us elsewhere that she's ``a free spirit,'' a ``caresser of life,'' and a ``mischief hound.'' Despite some writing-school-style formal exercises (a pyrrhic, a ghasel, and some credible imitations of James Wright and Auden), Ackerman is at her best in artful poems that embody the sensuality of nature, luxuriating in a lyric vocabulary all her own. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 128 pages
• Publisher: Random House; 1 edition (March 31, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679448780
• ISBN-13: 978-0679448785
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,569,727 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Diane Ackerman is the acclaimed author of "A Natural History of the Senses," the bestselling "The Zookeeper's Wife," "Dawn Light," and many other books. She lives in Ithaca, New York, and Palm Beach, Florida

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Gorgeous poetry about coming to terms with being mortal., May 24, 1999

By 

[e-mail] (St. Louis, Missouri USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: I Praise My Destroyer: Poems (Hardcover)

Ackerman presents a book of poems that any mortal can relate to and be deeply moved by. The poems encourage us to accept our fate as human beings (death, ultimately) with grace and appreciation for the forces of nature, great and small, which move our lives and shape our world. Gorgeous, sensual poetry on themes of life woven with descriptions of natural and botanical elements. As one who does not believe in God and often feels distraught over having to accept the fact of my own mortality, it is comforting and consoling to read some of the poems which encourage us to humbly accept the mysterious beauty of our world and the powerful forces of nature which govern our existance and simply to enjoy the sensual lovliness of life while we can.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Messenger of Wonder, January 3, 2002

By 

Eric (Silver Spring, MD, United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: I Praise My Destroyer: Poems (Vintage) (Paperback)

If you love great poetry, read this book. If you love nature, and suffer to see it destroyed, and want to learn to suffer without hating, read this book. Diane, you are truly a messenger of wonder.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A feast for the senses and the soul, December 15, 2000

By 

William Timothy Lukeman - See all my reviews
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This review is from: I Praise My Destroyer: Poems (Vintage) (Paperback)

Here is gorgeous, thoughtful poetry, both lush and precise, engaging both heart and mind. I can't imagine anyone coming away from the riches of this slim volume unmoved. Whenever you fear that the world is too drab, too grey, too hopeless, dip into the quiet, deep beauty of these pages and be renewed.