The painting Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? by Paul Gauguin, intended as the painter's final artistic testimony, is the inspiration and framework for this book. In one way, "The Gauguin Answer Sheet" focuses on the intricate details of the painting and offers its lush Tahitian landscape and characters--a black dog, a pair of conspirators, a shy woman, a pleading goddess, and a crouching mummy, among many others. In another sense, Dennis Finnell deeply probes the underlying implications--and personal associations--the painting offers.

The poem's own questions,...