Giovanni herself identifies Bicycles as a volume of love poems. There are two poems dealing with murders that took place in Blacksburg, VA. The first poem, dedicated to a professor at Virginia Tech, is about the murder of a hospital guard and a deputy sheriff. A later poem, entitled "Virginia Tech," is about the 2007 massacre at the college. However, the rest of the poems are about one or more of Giovanni's romantic relationships. The tone of the love poems varies from wistful longing to the frustration of a lover who has given everything she knows how but feels her love isn't reciprocated. Book club members agreed with me that it would have been better not to read the entire volume in one sitting. Members familiar with Giovanni's work commented that the tone of this volume differs from the poetry of her early, politically activist, period.

In Bicycles, Giovanni writes of complex matters with simple words that the average reader can easily understand. Although some of her poetry is metrical and rhymes, most of it is free verse. The images she uses are striking in their simplicity and homeyness.

If you have a book club that really likes poetry, Bicycles is a very accessible volume. I briefly discussed meter and rhyme, as well as simile, metaphor, and other types of imagery used by poets. Then I asked the members each to read a poem they liked and tell why they liked it, with attention to the elements we had discussed. Book club members rated Bicyles 4 stars for individual use, but only 3 stars for use for a book club discussion because some of them felt that, beyond asking members what they liked, there wasn't enough to discuss.