Diane Ackerman

"Ackerman is extraordinarily attuned to the ceaseless vibrancy of nature, the life of the mind--the source of all that is human, from our sense of self and beauty to longing and pain--and paradox: that the vital green of summer conceals the red of autumn; that something as delicate as folded paper, as ephemeral as a poem, can serve as a bridge from dark to light. In her beguiling nature writing, Ackerman is superlatively descriptive and wonderfully present. In her poetry, Ackerman's love for and command of words are even more pronounced, more daring and whimsical, and she is positively incandescent here. Ackerman explains that these spirited poems ‘geysered up’ each day during “intense psychotherapy," and there is indeed an aura of oracular certainty about them, a unity and purity that seems drenched in the divine, and yet they're fully grounded in Ackerman's experiences: her Illinois girlhood; adventures in the wild and on the move flying, diving, and skiing; immersions in love, loss, and psychotherapy, a profoundly demanding dialogue that is at once intimate and ritualized. “Psychotherapy and lyrical poetry address many of the same issues,” Ackerman observes, but, oh, what a difference art makes."