I'm not sure how to react to this book. It read quickly; I enjoyed it -- but I'm not sure if I gained much from it. Donald Hall is probably better known as an anthologist than as a poet or critic, and this books reflects the very wide reading and broad tastes of a skilled anthologist. The book is carefully, if somewhat flatly written; it is certain the work of a practicing poet not an academic. Too often Hall's technique is to introduce a new writer, and then quote at length (often it is not clear if we are being given excerpts or complete poems). Being given a difficult new poem in this way can be frustrating, something like being handed a map without street names on it. Other times, Hall appears to be addressing a small audience of like-minded readers and seems to take as given a common background of assumptions. Reading these essays thirty years after the fact it becomes apparent how much of that background is a product of its time. ( )