Hejinian's life is depicted in its myriad details, and everything is considered sacred in that point of view, whether it be a fox in the woods, a glass fragment of something stored in a jar, her father at the table, or her food, or her habits, or her routine, her frequent visits to the wilderness on her childhood adventures, her experience of literature, her ravenous desire to have words all her own. The sacredness comes from the word Life in the title, because the book openly celebrates the author's existence as a holy experience.
The religion is not the rote religion of man's creation either. Hejinian's religion is her affinity for experiences, her sense of absolute wonder and delight, her constant analysis of everything, her desire to find exactly the right word, and understanding her love for her parents, which the poet returns to thematically again and again in the poetry, unable to fathom the weight of existence, of parents, and of death.
The poetry is sometimes delightful and fun, and sometimes weighty and severe, but in all cases, the love of experience shines through. She wants experiences that aren't necessarily hers to have, which she explores in the section where she writes her name on her father's books, trying to adopt his knowledge as her own, trying to inherit what he knows like the Prodigal Son or something. Her appetite for true understanding is what makes her a poet, one might say, because when perfect understanding is not available, she captures the mysteries instead with beautiful language.
