Smoke as a symbol for the toxicity of the world
In the poem Homo Suburbiensis, the poet writes about a man sitting in his garden. The man enjoys the time he spends in the garden, surrounded by his crops. Suddenly, the air is filled with smoke and the man stops, unable to breath, looking for the origin of the smoke. The smoke in this context is used as a symbol to make reference to the toxicity of the world. Just as the smoke made the man stop what he was doing and focus on the provenience of it, the toxic ideas in the world can make us stop and divers our attention from what truly matters.
Symbol of death
In the poem Homecoming, the poet describes the way the soldiers were brought home in body bags. He mentions a spider, crawling in the suburban houses where the dead will be brought and mentions how the spider can get anywhere. The spider in this case is used as a symbol for death and for the fact that during the Vietnam War, almost everyone was affected by it in some way or another.
The bedroom
In the poem Bedroom Conversations, the poet talks about the typical teenager and how she stays in her bedroom, thinking about her life and what she wants to do next. The poet suggests that just like the girl in the poem, there are countless of other teenagers in the same situation, thinking about the same things, sitting in bedrooms that are almost identical. Because of this, the bedroom is used here as a symbol to make reference to the teenagers living that time and to suggest that their problems is extremely similar.
Praise Mother Nature
Another common motif is the idea that society should take care of nature and should focus on it more than they do. The poet suffers because the vast majority of the population is too busy with trying to obtain as much money and as many things as possible and because they ignore the beauty of nature around them. This idea is a common motif in the poems and appears in almost every poem in the collection.
Death everywhere
Another common motif in the poems is the idea that death is everywhere and that everyone will die and have to deal with the passing of someone they love at one point in their lives. While it is normal for this theme to appear in the poems in which the author discusses war, this theme also is present in the more light-hearted poems in the collection, thus making it a common motif.
