Like Good and Bad Angels, two spirits of very different kinds are at work in Richard Howard's six books of poetry to date. One is genial and generous, and shows itself in the two best known of the volumes, Untitled Subjects (1969) and Two-Part Inventions (1974)…. [The] measure of the heights to which the books rise can best be taken in terms of pleasure. There is an ampleness about the books that is perhaps the sine qua non of pleasure itself. For the reader of the poetry entire, however, the surest guide to their genius (or angel) is the relief felt in coming to them, particularly since we cannot help but sense that this feeling was the poet's before it was ours—his Good Angel was at work….
But the two books are haunted by their successors, Findings (1971) and Fellow Feelings (1976), the fourth and the sixth of the volumes, in which the Bad Angel shows itself. These two are demanding where the other two are openhanded, compelling where the others are attractive; if we sense the poet's ease in Untitled Subjects and Two-Part Inventions, we will feel the constraints under which he works in Findings and Fellow Feelings. The measure of the depths to which the latter two sink, as it is perhaps the Bad Angel's name, is will. (p. 85)
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