Diane Ackerman
Diane Ackerman
Diane Ackermanis an American poet, essayist, and naturalist known for her wide-ranging curiosity and poetic explorations of the natural world...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth7 October 1948
CountryUnited States of America
ideas focus perception
Words are small shapes in the gorgeous chaos of the world. ... they bring the world into focus, they corral ideas, they hone thoughts, they paint watercolors of perception.
people culture lost
Culture is what people invent when they have lost nature.
creativity creative strange
For the longest time I didn't realize I was creative - I just thought I was strange.
choices signatures species
Choice is a signature of our species.
dream children blood
The brain is only three pounds of blood, dream, and electricity, and yet from that mortal stew come Beethoven's sonatas. Dizzie Gillespie's jazz. Audrey Hepburn's wish to spend the last month of her life in Somalia, saving children.
cups authenticity drink
Who would drink from a cup when they can drink from the source?
past poetry telescopes
Poetry is an act of distillation. It takes contingency samples, is selective. It telescopes time. It focuses what most often floods past us in a polite blur.
soul share our-lives
And yet, words are the passkeys to our souls. Without them, we can't really share the enormity of our lives.
space phantoms needs
Tranquillity hides in small spaces, and when found needs to be treasured, because you know it's a phantom that will slip away again.
heart anxiety mind
Wonder is a bulky emotion. When you let it fill your heart and mind, there isn't room for anxiety, distress or anything else.
nature giving mercy
Nature neither gives nor expects mercy.
like-love innocent
Like love, travel makes you innocent again.
sleep night evil
Things that live by night live outside the realm of 'normal' time and so suggest living outside the realm of good and evil, since we have moralistic feelings about time. Chauvinistic about our human need to wake by day and sleep by night, we come to associate night dwellers with people up to no good at a time when they have the jump on the rest of us and are defying nature, defying their circadian rhythms.
trying fever world
To begin to understand the gorgeous fever that is consciousness, we must try to understand the senses and what they can tell us about the ravishing world we have the privilege to inhabit.