The Act of Naming

Poets craft language to evoke emotions, depict images, and convey ideas. In addition, poems are places where language can depart from conventional modes of use. In her rich and innovative poetic style, Natalie Diaz engages constantly in naming as a physical and energetic process that builds on the reader's senses. The speaker in “From the Desire Field” calls her anxiety-fueled insomnia a lavish garden and a field of desire. In doing so, she changes her understanding (at least temporarily) of experiences that are typically cast in a negative light. Despite eventually voicing her intention to leave this field of desire at the end of the poem, the processes of naming and renaming shape the speaker’s view, (and as a result, the reader’s view as well).

The act of naming in this poem occurs in the epistolary context in which it was...