The Examined Life: From Close Up to Abstract

This collection starts out with poems about what the human experience is often like on a personal level and then moves outward to human life as it relates to the rest of nature, to dreams, and death. A part deals with human life in society and another with more abstract concepts of humanity that are philosophical. Poems are a combination of free verse and structured formats often modified. The structural type of poems represented are Sonnet, Sestina, Pantoum, Rondeau, and most often Villanelle. Appleton’s goal is always that they be just long enough to convey a single memorable and moving image, feeling, or thought.