SOURCE: Carruth, Hayden. Review of New and Collected Poems, 1917-1976, by Archibald MacLeish. Virginia Quarterly Review 53, no. 1 (winter 1977): 146-54.

In the following review of New and Collected Poems, 1917-1976, Carruth lauds MacLeish's overall work as a poet while devoting particular attention to his epic Conquistador.

Almost 60 years of poetry in just under 500 pages, this new book by Mr. MacLeish [New and Collected Poems, 1917-1976]. Think of it. On this account alone, though many poems have been omitted, especially from the early years, it is a remarkable accomplishment, an honorable and exemplary accomplishment, as it is on other accounts as well. Mind, I write as a fellow poet, no pretence of a view sub specie aeternitatis, which would be impossible anyway in the world as it looks today. Or tomorrow. Yet I do lay claim to the degree of objectivity that professionalism—no, no, no, not those terms! All...