Galway Kinnell does not dream into nightmares, he heads into them frontally. [The Book of Nightmares] strings on and on in non-metre; Kinnell's ear is good, but the lengths after a while cry out for more shape. We are exposed to repeated themes, such as dead hens full of eggs, bears eating flowers, babies being messily born. Kinnell can produce sufficiently revolting effects…. There is too much of this, and it becomes a weariness. I come out occasionally impressed, but never moved. (pp. 501-02)

Richmond Lattimore, in The Hudson Review (copyright © 1971 by The Hudson Review, Inc.; reprinted by permission), Vol. XXIV, No. 3, Autumn, 1971.