From the beginning of his poetic career, Donald Justice has focused obsessively on a central theme: loss….

But it is not Justice's themes that first strike the reader on coming to the Selected Poems. It is the language itself, the particular idiom and pattern of the poems. While some poetry aims directly at arousing the feelings, Justice's poetry appeals to the feelings through the route of the intelligence. Form is present in an emphatic way—we notice the poem's structure, the elegant musical language. (p. 44)

There is no attempt at realism in Justice's poetry; the action and language are structured, contrived. Justice has always been interested in working out a form that expresses and accompanies what he wants to say….

Influenced by Eliot's essay, "Tradition and the Individual Talent," Justice early on worked within, from, and against his "received" tradition. He continues to do so. (p. 45)

Many of...