The Cruelty of Time and Obsolescence
Shapiro demonstrates a profound concern with not only the past but with the instability of its position. For instance, he is continually remarking how he wonders if things have remained the same since his memory of this or that. In "A Garden in Chicago" he concludes with the tenuous allowance that it's an assumption to imagine the garden has remained all these years since his visit. This sort of self-consciousness alludes to Shapiro's concern that in fact things rarely do remain the same. He communicates this with readers by calling his own pronouncements and memories into question.
Similarly, both the prisoner of "The Conscientious Objector" and the nobleman of "University" suffer at a distance from the world as they remained confined to ideas of the past which have long since been abandoned. For the prisoner, his sentence prevents him from remaining present with the rapid changes of the outside world. His plight resounds back through history to conquered peoples and refugees alike. For the nobleman, his particular suffering relates to the pride with which he enjoyed his instruction at university and the horror with which he recognizes that instruction becoming not only obsolete but taboo today. The students look down upon this man who accomplished all he was told was good.
Nature as Cultural Signifier
Shapiro uses specificity to describe the flora and fauna featured in his poems. Indeed "featured" is the most appropriate term because he only includes these elements of nature in conjunction with the signification of culture or location. For instance, there are no roses in "A Garden in Chicago," instead lilacs and zinnias and marigolds line the paths. These are unexpected flowers in this context because both the lilacs and the marigolds are native to the northern U.S., but the zinnias are foreign and extremely uncommon in the north. As a group, this selection of specific flowers communicate both reminder of the location of the garden geographically as well as a sense of displacement with the inclusion of the zinnias. In much the same way, though no less distinct, the magnolias and boxwoods of "University" position this unnamed university in the heart of the south where these trees grow in abundance.
Captivity
In his poems, Shapiro also manages to express a fascination with captivity. Whether overt or subtle, his poems generally include an element of confinement. In "The Conscientious Objector" this theme takes a literal manifestation as the subject is a prisoner entering his home for the foreseeable future behind bars. Then in "A Garden in Chicago" Shapiro communicates a distinction between the inside of the garden walls and the outside. Inside there is tranquility and order, but outside there is hubbub and pretension. Even within the garden itself, however, there are fences, hedges, and walls with which to contend. Finally, in "University" the students live in dorms which Shapiro calls cells, located in buildings far removed from the rest of civilization, up on a hill. Their bastion of education exists apart from society in a sort of isolation of ideas.
