[Louise Glück in Descending Figure] may be working from the same themes as do [other modern poets] …, but her focus is much darker. The Descending Figure is that of a dying or already dead sister; the themes of death, of needing to feel emotion and passion in life, of the intense need to create meaningful language are paramount. The tone of the collection is, appropriately,… somber. Language is spare. Movement is slow. Words are repeated often, as are thematic clues.

The centrality of language occurs even in the opening title sequence, which is ostensibly about death. In part 3, Glück defines the dead as those who "however long they lie the earth," "will not learn to speak." Language, coming to words, speech, is the essential act of the human life. She offers her reader a sequence of poems about a small child, her son, in which his process of language acquisition is the controlling image. His maturing is equated with his gaining control over "the map of language."… (p. 304)

[Glück] ties language to feeling, and the sequence "The Garden" as well as other single poems expresses the need for risk, vulnerability. The persona seems to have come through debilitating losses. The poem "Palais Des Arts" speaks of "Love long dormant showing itself." Glück helps to unify the collection by using a poem about a child and the child's abilities to reinforce the theme of the need for feeling ("Portrait")…. Reminiscent of both W. C. Williams' and [Kenneth] Rexroth's concern with the power of language, and the place of language in modern life, Glück's new volume is somber and hesitant in its conclusions. (pp. 304-05)