Carter is currently working as freelance writer. In this essay, Carter considers the author's powerful use of imagery and language to transcend her own perceptions of death.

A simple reading of Radmila Lazic's "Death Sentences" reveals an interesting, often surreal look into the realm of death. But to simply view the work as a juxtaposition or side-by-side comparison of death to that of a Shakespearean tragedy is a careless underestimation of the emotive and spiritual power that lies beneath the work's surface. Upon closer examination of what appear to be innocuous or bland symbols, the poem takes on a psychological, emotional, and spiritual depth in its exploration of death, hitting a nerve that taps into the very pulse of human experience.

Lazic's poem begins with a paradox. The speaker cannot go back in time; her dilemma, that she "was born too late" yet she is "much too...