On Location in the
Loire Valley
Diane Ackerman’s poem “On Location in the Loire
Valley” was published in her fifth volume of po-
etry,I Praise My Destroyer(1998). The poem is
written in the form of a ghazal, which is a poetic
form that has flourished for hundreds of years in
Arabic, Persian, and Urdu literature. Most poets
who write ghazals in English produce much looser
forms than the traditional one, but Ackerman’s “On
Location in the Loire Valley” follows the traditional
pattern quite closely. The poem appears to tell a
story about a company of actors who are making a
film on location in the Loire Valley in France. The
poem also reflects, in a highly allusive manner, on
the nature of human life—its transience, the search
for communication, and its unanswerable questions.Author Biography
Diane Ackerman was born October 7, 1948, in
Waukegan, Illinois, the daughter of Sam (a restau-
rant owner) and Marcia (Tischler) Fink. She at-
tended Boston University from 1966 to 1967, and
then enrolled at Pennsylvania State University,
from which she graduated in 1970 with a bachelor
of arts degree. She pursued graduate study at Cor-
nell University, graduating in 1973 with a master
of fine arts degree. She went on to earn a master
of arts degree in 1976, and a Ph.D. in English in- She then held teaching positions at the Uni-
versity of Pittsburgh (1980–1983) and Washington
Diane Ackerman
1998
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