These poems are about gardens particularly the seventeenthcentury Frenchbaroque gardens designed by the father of the form Andre Le Notre. While thepoems focus ... » 

These poems are about gardens particularly the seventeenthcentury Frenchbaroque gardens designed by the father of the form Andre Le Notre. While thepoems focus on such examples as Versailles which Le Notre created for LouisXIV they also explore the garden as metaphor. Using the imagery of the gardenCole Swensen considers everything from human society to the formal structure ofpoetry. She looks in particular at the concept of public versus privateproperty asking who actually owns a garden? A gentle irony accompanies thequestion because in French the phrase le notre means ours. Whereas all ofLe Notres gardens were designed and built for the aristocracy today most arepublic parks. Swensen probes the two senses of le notre to discover wherethey intersect overlap or blur. «