Petrusso is a history and screenwriting scholar and freelance writer and editor. In this essay, Petrusso analyzes pairs of poems from Delights & Shadows that echo each other in their exploration of the theme of death.

In a 2004 interview with the periodical American Libraries, poet Ted Kooser said, "Poetry can make our lives brighter and more interesting. The challenge is in overcoming people's fear of poetry, learned in public schools where poems are taught as if they were algebra problems with one right answer." While Kooser writes poems that are absorbing and accessible to readers that might otherwise avoid poetry, a number of the poems in Delights & Shadows deal with death, a subject that makes many people uncomfortable. Many of the poems pertaining to death tell some sort of story, from a brief moment to a complicated tale, all while addressing mortality head-on. It is as he writes...