[Louise Glück in Descending Figure] may be working from the same themes as do [other modern poets] …, but her focus is much darker. The Descending Figure is that of a dying or already dead sister; the themes of death, of needing to feel emotion and passion in life, of the intense need to create meaningful language are paramount. The tone of the collection is, appropriately,… somber. Language is spare. Movement is slow. Words are repeated often, as are thematic clues.

The centrality of language occurs even in the opening title sequence, which is ostensibly about death. In part 3, Glück defines the dead as those who "however long they lie the earth," "will not learn to speak." Language, coming to words, speech, is the essential act of the human life. She offers her reader a sequence of poems about a small child, her son, in which his...