Fine, a Private Place by

¶ … fine, a Private place" by Diane Ackerman and "Desire" by Molly Peacock. The dominant theme throughout both poems is sexual desire seen as a fulfillment and expression of love. The first poem written by Ackerman is about two lovers who make love in an unconventional and symbolically charged environment i.e. under water. The poem "Desire" tackles the issue of sexual desire in a different manner, as the Peacock does not refer to it as directly and suggestively as Ackerman.

Instead, Peacock focuses on a set of parallels between desire and a number of other human emotions which aims at providing a sort of unconventional definition of the feeling. In the case of Ackerman's poem, the moment of desire is captured and described using numerous visual and sensorial details whose purpose is to recreate the scene over four stanzas.

Love making is reproduced in detail, and subtly incorporated in the depth of the ocean in the sense that the two lovers seem to be part of the world they are in, they become creatures of the under water. Ackerman relies on a description of physical attributes and actions with marine life.

The man in Ackerman's poem is physically described with considerable precision: "his sandy hair / and sea-blue eyes, his kelp thin waist / and chest ribbed wider / than a sandbar / where muscles domed / clear and taunt as shells" (Lines 34-40), and so is his partner: "his sea-geisha / in an orange kimono / of belts and vests, / her lacquered hair waving" (a Fine, a Private Place: 24-27).

The ocean, and the under water in general might be a symbol of the depth and primal emotions; in this sense, desire is illustrated by Ackerman as a primal emotion - the oceans represented a much larger percentage of the territory of the Earth in early geological eras - dating back to the beginnings of life. Both poems advocate a return to the basic human instinct of procreation. In the case of Diane Ackerman's "A fine, a Private Place," this return is dual as far as its symbolism.

In this sense, Ackerman's poem is both a return to the primordial soup represented on a metaphorical level by the water of the ocean, and an instance of the instinct of procreation that all humans share: "he pumped his brine deep within her, / letting sea water drive it / through petals / delicate as anemone veils / to the dark purpose / of a conch-shaped womb" (a fine, a Private Place: 66-71).

In the case of Molly Peacock's "Desire," the primal instinct of procreation lies in the separation of reason from feeling; in this context, desire becomes "but more raw / and blinder and younger and more divine, too, / than the tamed wild -- it's the drive for what is real, / deeper than the brain's detail: the drive to feel." (Desire: 11-14) Here, "what is real" is a metaphorical reference to the instinctual drive that supports and amplifies the feeling of desire; "the drive to feel" designates the innermost aspect of what makes us human.

Molly Peacock's poem "Desire" focuses on the abstract notion of sexual desire, on what drives it and what its manifestations are. She does not provide an example - as in the case of Ackerman - of how sexual desire operates, and its ways of expression between two lovers but adopts the same theoretical.