The Wild Iris Symbolism, Imagery & Wordplay

The word "iris" is everywhere and nowhere in this poem. Appearing only in the title, the word nonetheless triggers a powerful set of symbolic associations that shape the poem as a whole. Do you rem...

In the second line of the poem, the speaker mentions a door but won't tell us where it leads. Talk about a teaser. Doors make us curious because they represent change, movement from one place (or s...

One of the most intense moments in "The Wild Iris" comes when the speaker recalls the horror of being buried alive. Yep, that sounds a lot like death to Shmoop. Luckily, we've got other imagery to...

The world can be a pretty noisy place, so we're often grateful for a little peace and quiet. But there's quiet, and there's quiet: sometimes silence can be unwelcome or even creepy. In "The Wild Ir...

Images of light and darkness are everywhere in poetry. In fact, if you went to shop at the poetic devices store, the most crowded aisle would probably be the one where all the light and dark images...

Speaking of fountains, that water imagery in the last stanza seems to come out of nowhere. Still, Glück has prepared us for it by including a single contrasting reference to dryness early in the p...