Our Life in Poetry

Library Journal

Rosenthal ( The Modern Poets , LJ 11/15/60; The New Poets , LJ 7/67; The Poet's Art , LJ 7/87) is a very important critic. In this gathering there is much to please and instruct both new and advanced readers. His prose is clear and to the point, not laden with ideology-bound catch phrases. The material ranges from a 1944 consideration of Kenneth Fearing through essays on Yeats, Eliot, and Pound (the complete text of A Primer of Ezra Pound , a major assessment of that troubling poet, is included) to an autobiographical essay. As a critic, and a fine poet himself, Rosenthal has dedicated himself to poetry, and we can learn much about poets and their art from him. A major book necessary for all collections.-- Vincent D. Balitas, Allentown Coll., Center Valley, Pa.