The poems trace several themes through the poet's boyhood to the threshold of his middle age: flight, escapism, distance, cultural displacement -- themes that are strained by the counterpressures of literary, political, and artistic impulses. The desire for flight and its attendant concerns are foremost among these motifs -- flight to the sea, to love in all its varied and alluring forms, even to dying in its many manifestations. With these modes of motion comes an obsession with historical characters who have had their own travails resolved by flight, both psychological and actual: Achilles, Ulysses, Circe, and above all Lucretius, Virgil, and Dante, the perennial sustainers.

Blending southern narrative language with the melodic intensity of the impassioned lyric voices of the classical world, Doing Lucretius is a profound and deeply satisfying collection.