Sections II through VII Summary

There are only five selections in this volume which were chosen from Oliver's Blue Iris, published in 2004. Interestingly, each of these poems has to do with a different flower: bleeding-hearts, touch-me-nots, goldenrod, everlasting and finally sunflowers. The first and fourth poems, "The Bleeding-heart" and "How Would You Live Then?" which appear on pages 61 and 66, respectively, are formatted on the page as prose pieces rather than divided into stanzas like the others in this section. The fifth poem, entitled "On Goldenrod at Field's Edge" is made up of seven stanzas of four short lines each which run diagonally from left to right down the page. The effect creates a cascade of words which move steadily back and forth before the reader's eye.

The remaining five sections comprise sixty-four poems published between 1994 and 2004. It should be noted that all...