This first volume acts primarily to introduce the archetypes, usually from a third-person perspective. The next two poems, portraying Wild-Man at Christmas, indirectly juxtapose the birth of this Antichrist with that of the Savior, a connection picked up at various times throughout the sequence. Also an accomplished playwright, Owens shows her sense of action in the motion of the poems on the page. For her, the creation of a voice means that the new voice must be free to wander about, with each persona's impulsive character demonstrated in part by his or her mobility. Lines weave back and forth, for brief periods becoming regular, as in the end of the whirling dervish ceremony, where the speaker is centered on his own ground, the voice almost tender compared to the hard-edged and often erotic images which began the poem.
Individual lyrics mount to form a narrative whole through a careful repetition of images.
Owens' use of imagery is so casual that we often don't realize how startling her perception was until the same image repeats in a slightly different fashion several pages later. Here we are set squarely in the civilized world of pride and ownership, of man imitating God. Even without a complete understanding, the poems have an increasing power and a very definite humor. The innocence gone, this section approaches grief, albeit still from the primitive perspective. In a creation sequence, such as this is, it is hard to escape the implication that this imagery is meant to represent the symbolic death of God.