These poems are about gardens, particularly the seventeenth-century French baroque gardens designed by the father of the form, Andre Le Notre. While the poems focus on such examples as Versailles, which Le Notre created for Louis XIV, they also explore the garden as metaphor. Using the imagery of the garden, Cole Swensen considers everything from human society to the formal structure of poetry. She looks in particular at the concept of public versus private property, asking who actually owns a garden? A gentle irony accompanies the question because in French, the phrase 'le notre' means "ours". Whereas all of Le Notre's gardens were designed and built for the aristocracy, today most are public parks. Swensen probes the two senses of 'le notre' to discover where they intersect, overlap, or blur.

Prizes

Commended for L.A. Times Book Prize (Poetry) 2008

"Engaging and delightful." Publishers Weekly "Highly recommended for contemporary poetry collections." -- Karla Huston, Appleton Art Ctr., WI Library Journal "The best landscape architecture book of the year is a book-length poem." -- Norman Weinstein Archnewsnow.com "The unrelenting lens Swensen turns on the [gardens] allows us to glimpse some of the myriad layers that constitute history." -- Mary Jo Bang Harvard Review

Cole Swensen is the author of eleven previous books of poetry. She is also a translator and has won the PEN USA Award in Literary Translation. Her poetry has won the Iowa Poetry Prize and the San Francisco State Poetry Center Book Award, and she teaches at the Iowa Writers' Workshop.