The following version of this poem was used to create this guide: Orr, Gregory. "I want to go back." Concerning the Book That Is the Body of the Beloved (Copper Canyon Press, 2005).

Note that all parenthetical citations refer to the line number from which the quotation is taken.

Gregory Orr is a poet and teacher known for his short lyric poems that explore themes of trauma, survival, and healing. Orr has stated in interviews that he uses language as a tool for reckoning with the unbearable. This stems from a traumatic incident in his childhood. At the age of 12, Orr accidentally shot and killed his younger brother while on a hunting trip. The subsequent breakdown of his family unit and the need to confront the violent chaos of what happened led Orr to eventually study poetry. For Orr, writing poems is a way to transform disorder into something beautiful and useful. Poetry allows chaos and crisis to shine through an ordering principle.

In "I want to go back," the speaker shares his desire to return to a simpler time before he was scarred by hurt. No degree of impossibility prevents this desire, which the speaker calls a universal human experience. However, the speaker also acknowledges the inherent nature of pain through a metaphor. All beginnings, even in landscapes, are a type of wound.