Cover of I Praise My Destroyer: Poems

I Praise My Destroyer: Poems

by Diane Ackerman · 1998

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In her first new book of poetry since Jaguar of Sweet Laughter, poet and naturalist Diane Ackerman combines her deep understanding of the world with her immense passion for language to craft richly sensual poems that "honor all life/wherever and in whatever form/it may deal."

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Imbued with ravishing imagery, these exuberant and lyrical explorations of aging, longing, and death demonstrate Ackerman's full engagement with every aspect of life's process. Ackerman muses on the confines of therapy sessions, where she intersects "twice a week/in a painstaking hide-and-seek/making do with half-light, half-speak"; relishes the succulent pleasure of eating an apricot, with its "gush of taboo sweetness"; and imagines the "unupholstered voice, a life in outline" in her stunning elegy to C. S. Lewis. Whimsical, organic, and wise, the poems in I Praise My Destroyeraffirm Ackerman's place as one of the most enchanting poets writing today.

Themes
agingagingMore like thisLess of thisdeathdeathMore like thisLess of this
Audience
adult
Length
short · 132 pages
Form
poetrypoetryMore like thisLess of this

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