The poems in A History of the Garden examine a remarkable range of subjects - history and our place in it, tensions between science and technology, art, aesthetics, and spirituality - offering possible reconciliations and exploring ways we construct knowledge and belief as we approach a new millennium. Far from disengaging from the rhythms and passions of daily life, however, these poems use the backdrop of that life to provide constant context for more abstract concerns of the book. For these poems are also deeply personal, rooted in friendship, family, travel, the western landscape, and relationship.