“Hays creates an environment that’s heavily influenced by the writing of poets that … forged our contemporary understanding of poetry. The book opens with ‘Inscriptions,’ … epigraphs, setting the tone for what’s to come—elegiac proclamations about the natural world, the oneness of man with nature, and the unpredictability of passion. … [T]he poet’s incorporation of epigraphs to launch his poems is … helpful to situate the persona’s framework. … Hays then divides his book into […]