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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Celebrated for her wide-ranging and personal essays on nature, art and love, Ackerman (A Natural History of the Senses; Deep Play) has also maintained a career as a poet; this latest volume of short poems "emerged, hot off the heart" (as Ackerman's introduction explains) from her intense and gratifying experience of psychoanalysis. Sometimes addressed to herself and her personal history, at least as often addressed to "Dr. B-," Ackerman's passionate free verse (short, fluent and adorned by irregular rhyme) describes with nearly unmixed awe the relationship she created with her analyst, and the personal transformation she achieved. Unfortunately, the results fare badly as art: cliches, predictable figuration, mixed metaphor, and clunky diction mar almost every page of this strikingly rough, even amateurish, sequence. Very familiar figures for the events and feelings of therapy-and for introspection in general- abound. Patient and doctor "journey alone together/ through the wild country of the soul." Ackerman' speaker "weeps as she nabs/ a fugitive memory/ in an ecstasy of shame"; fears that "I'll lose my inner voice," and devotes one poem to a youthful, hopeful alter ego called Molly: "I can't revive Molly's utopia," she explains, "but I believe there lived and loved once/ a frisky scamp like her." "By reading you/ reading me trying to read you," Ackerman says near the end of her analysis, "I build idioms of acceptance/ from grief's residue"; such self-trust and self-confidence may be admirable in life, but in these poems they sound like self- involvement. Readers who want revealing, white-hot verse based on psychotherapy should stick with Anne Sexton (whose late work these poems faintly resemble); fans of Ackerman's prose will not find her compositional skills in evidence here.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Thematic books of poetry can be tricky, but Ackerman's latest-following several poetry collections and respected works of nonfiction like A Natural History of the Senses-is a resounding success. The poems chronicle a year and a half of psychotherapy carried out by telephone, a situation that Ackerman found comfortable because she once worked as a phone crisis-line counselor. Poets often take the content of their emotional lives as substance for their work, so Ackerman's explicit use of her therapy is a natural next step. Still, the proceedings could have been painfully (or boringly) self-conscious, but Ackerman is far too witty and honest a writer to sink us with pretense. After an opening poem that observes "Though my curiosity/ is swelling like a Megellanic Cloud/ filled with a luminous starfield of questions,/ I'll sacrifice them on the altar of our ineffable cause," Ackerman offers a dazzling exploration of memory, anguish, and desire. Why probe so deeply? "Because it is the way/ of our kind, you and I,/ we ladle idea like hot steel," she concludes. A good answer, and this is hot stuff. Buy it for all contemporary poetry collections.
Barbara Hoffert, "Library Journal"
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.
See all Editorial Reviews
Celebrated for her wide-ranging and personal essays on nature, art and love, Ackerman (A Natural History of the Senses; Deep Play) has also maintained a career as a poet; this latest volume of short poems "emerged, hot off the heart" (as Ackerman's introduction explains) from her intense and gratifying experience of psychoanalysis. Sometimes addressed to herself and her personal history, at least as often addressed to "Dr. B-," Ackerman's passionate free verse (short, fluent and adorned by irregular rhyme) describes with nearly unmixed awe the relationship she created with her analyst, and the personal transformation she achieved. Unfortunately, the results fare badly as art: cliches, predictable figuration, mixed metaphor, and clunky diction mar almost every page of this strikingly rough, even amateurish, sequence. Very familiar figures for the events and feelings of therapy-and for introspection in general- abound. Patient and doctor "journey alone together/ through the wild country of the soul." Ackerman' speaker "weeps as she nabs/ a fugitive memory/ in an ecstasy of shame"; fears that "I'll lose my inner voice," and devotes one poem to a youthful, hopeful alter ego called Molly: "I can't revive Molly's utopia," she explains, "but I believe there lived and loved once/ a frisky scamp like her." "By reading you/ reading me trying to read you," Ackerman says near the end of her analysis, "I build idioms of acceptance/ from grief's residue"; such self-trust and self-confidence may be admirable in life, but in these poems they sound like self- involvement. Readers who want revealing, white-hot verse based on psychotherapy should stick with Anne Sexton (whose late work these poems faintly resemble); fans of Ackerman's prose will not find her compositional skills in evidence here.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Thematic books of poetry can be tricky, but Ackerman's latest-following several poetry collections and respected works of nonfiction like A Natural History of the Senses-is a resounding success. The poems chronicle a year and a half of psychotherapy carried out by telephone, a situation that Ackerman found comfortable because she once worked as a phone crisis-line counselor. Poets often take the content of their emotional lives as substance for their work, so Ackerman's explicit use of her therapy is a natural next step. Still, the proceedings could have been painfully (or boringly) self-conscious, but Ackerman is far too witty and honest a writer to sink us with pretense. After an opening poem that observes "Though my curiosity/ is swelling like a Megellanic Cloud/ filled with a luminous starfield of questions,/ I'll sacrifice them on the altar of our ineffable cause," Ackerman offers a dazzling exploration of memory, anguish, and desire. Why probe so deeply? "Because it is the way/ of our kind, you and I,/ we ladle idea like hot steel," she concludes. A good answer, and this is hot stuff. Buy it for all contemporary poetry collections.
Barbara Hoffert, "Library Journal"
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.
See all Editorial Reviews
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Citations
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9
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- The World Is a Waiting Lover: Desire and the Quest for the Beloved by Trebbe Johnson in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
- 75 Readings Plus by Santi V. Buscemi on page 87, and page 92
- An Alchemy of Mind: The Marvel and Mystery of the Brain by Diane Ackerman in Front Matter
- Blue Peninsula: Essential Words for a Life of Loss and Change by Madge McKeithen in Back Matter
- The Best American Science Writing 2004 (Best American Science Writing) by Dava Sobel in Back Matter
See all 9 books citing this book