SOURCE: Middleton, David. “With Modesty and Measured Love.” Sewanee Review 104, no. 1 (winter 1996): 10-13.

In the following review, Middleton outlines the major thematic concerns of the poems in Spring Garden.

This impressive and delightful volume gathers together much—but by no means all—of the best verse written during the last quarter century by one of the South's finest poets. There are also new poems, including a general prologue and epilogue and separate prologues to each of the book's seven carefully ordered sections.

Spring Garden takes us through a late spring day with the poet's wife working in the actual garden while the poet himself selects his “metaphorical” flowers and arranges them in clusters governed by particular plants whose traditional virtues are invoked. Such plants include lettuce for “The Good Life,” thyme—and other aphrodisiacs—for “The Garden of Love,” mythic fern seed for the invisibility required to write...