The garden

Most of the poems with an established setting take place in a garden. In many of these poems, the garden in question is clearly the poet's garden, which she tends with her husband John. In "Matins (#1)," the garden is a symbol of happiness; the poet and her son Noah are in a garden as they discuss how a depressed person may or may not feel about nature in the springtime. In this poem, Glück expresses her affinity for a particular birch tree, which she suggests is evidence that Noah is wrong about "depressives" (2) being unable to enjoy nature in spring. In "Matins (#5)," Glück describes herself pretending to weed in the garden as she contemplates her religious faith and her suffering. In "Song," she establishes a rose she has grown as a symbol for the human heart, only to be criticized by John. It is also...