Diane Ackerman

Smell brings to mind... a family dinner of pot roast and sweet potatoes during a myrtle-mad August in a Midwestern read more

Smell brings to mind... a family dinner of pot roast and sweet potatoes during a myrtle-mad August in a Midwestern town. Smells detonate softly in our memory like poignant land mines hidden under the weedy mass of years.

Look in the mirror. The face that pins you with its double gaze reveals a chastening secret.

Look in the mirror. The face that pins you with its double gaze reveals a chastening secret.

A poem records emotions and moods that lie beyond normal language, that can only be patched together and hinted at read more

A poem records emotions and moods that lie beyond normal language, that can only be patched together and hinted at metaphorically.

I don't want to get to the end of my life and find that I just lived the length of read more

I don't want to get to the end of my life and find that I just lived the length of it. I want to have lived the width of it as well.

Nothing is more memorable than a smell. One scent can be unexpected, momentary and fleeting, yet conjure up a childhood read more

Nothing is more memorable than a smell. One scent can be unexpected, momentary and fleeting, yet conjure up a childhood summer beside a lake in the mountains...