English 206 - Modern and Contemporary Literature Dr. Carstens In her "Twenty-One Love Poems," Adrienne Rich arranges a series of nature images in order to investigate the relationship between self and city, self and lover. Throughout this collection of poems, nature serves as a symbol of psychic life and shock, and it can be difficult to interpret the various natural metaphors which Rich uses. One can, however, group these images into categories, and I will suggest two. On one hand there are images of growing plants, most notably trees. On th ....