Another language of flowers

the long version

Imagine walking through a garden full of never-before-seen flowers. Then open this book and you will find twelve of them waiting to charm you, beckon to you, and whisper their messages like perfume in the air. Dorothea Tanning has painted these twelve imaginary blooms on twelve canvases--one for each month, or for each hour of the day or night. To speak for them, twelve contemporary poets have chosen a flower and given it its voice, creating, in these pages, a dazzling collaboration that has resulted in a new "language of flowers." With Poems by: James Merrill, Harry Mathews, Rosanna Warren, Debora Greger, Adrienne Rich, Anthony Hecht, Richard Howard,J. D. McClatchy, W S.Merwin, John Ashbery, Stephen Yenser, and Brenda Shaughnessy.