Point of View

“From the Desire Field” is written in the first-person perspective of a speaker who renames her anxiety-fueled insomnia as a garden of desire. In general, poets should not be conflated with the speakers in their poems. However, “From the Desire Field” was written in the context of an epistolary exchange between poets Natalie Diaz and Ada Limón. When read in the original context, the speaker in this poem reflects a part of Diaz’s life that she chose to share with a friend via a poem. That being said, the speaker in “From the Desire Field” can also be understood as separate from the poet.

Regardless of whether the reader chooses to view the speaker as Diaz herself, the speaker offers a visionary way of looking at the world and her experiences. For example, she redefines her anxiety as desire and uses vivid natural...