A poet’s critical prose holds interest for many people. Scholars examine it for clarifications or contradictions of the poet’s verse, admiring readers for echoes of the language that captivated them in the poetry, to which students and new readers may want some kind of “authorized introduction.” When writing about the work of others poets reveal...

“There is no more self-assured man than a had poet.” —Martial Sometimes it seems as though everyone who was anyone in postwar American poetry was attending, teaching at, or at least near Harvard in the 1950’s. This impression is confirmed by Peter Davison’s memoir: everyone was. In The Fading Smile, Davison offers glimpses into this...

Years ago, in his essay “Football Red and Baseball Green,” Murray Ross contrasted the battlefield dynamics of the former with the latter’s ostensibly more pastoral qualities. By virtue of its subtle but intense mannerisms, its lack of time limit and essentially cyclic action—a “summer game” that in fact encompasses spring’s renewal and autumn’s decline—baseball has...