Point of View

“The Lilies” is written in the first-person perspective, featuring a speaker who contemplates both mortality and nature as she undergoes treatment for oral cancer. This perspective gives the poem a personal flair, and though speakers should never be equated with the poet, Wood has stated that she wrote this poem after herself experiencing oral cancer. The speaker’s physical actions as well as the descriptions of the nature around her provide insight into her inner life. For example, her decision to buy and plant lilies after learning she might have cancer demonstrates her hope for survival. The darkest moments of her cancer occur in winter, where “rhizomes [shrink] / below the frost line” (10-11). But even during this time, she does not succumb to despair. Instead, the speaker maintains a measured and patient tone throughout the poem, faithfully waiting for the lilies to open and to...