Virginia Woolf's diaries, which were published in four volumes after her death, have been a particular inspiration to Barot. Woolf's husband, Leonard, culled extracts from her diaries and collected them in A Writer's Diary (1936).

Seamus Heaney, winner of the 1995 Nobel Prize for Literature, is another of Barot's favorites. As with Barot, language and place are important elements in Heaney's work. To compare the two, read one of Heaney's first collections, Death of a Naturalist (1966).

William Wordsworth has been a third influence on Barot's writing. Like “Bonnard's Garden,” Wordsworth's “Upon Westminster Bridge” focuses on a specific place. This poem as well as works by Wordsworth's contemporaries can be found in The Oxford Book of English Verse (1939).

Barot's writing is often compared to that of Elizabeth Bishop, who was independently wealthy as an adult and spent most of her time traveling around...