David Wagoner finds the material for [Who Shall Be the Sun?] in the songs, myths and legends of the American Indian. The title poem retells the Plateau Indian story about the attempt of Raven, Hawk, and Coyote to be the sun. Where they fail, Snake succeeds by dreaming. It is a parable of Wagoner's own success with this folklore. He has not written translations but condensed versions that avoid stereotyped language…. One of the persistent themes is death, involving the disappearance of the First People into plants and animals. All things are alive and men find life by losing themselves…. The voice is Wagoner's own, personal, familiar, concerned. He has achieved a remarkable fusion of nature, legend, and psyche in these poems. (pp. 118-19)