SOURCE: “New Directions in Poetry: The Work of Louis Simpson,” in On Louis Simpson: Depths Beyond Happiness, edited by Hank Lazer, University of Michigan Press, 1988, pp. 63–65.

In the following review, originally published in 1964, Locke addresses Simpson's change of style and focus in At the End of the Open Road.

So much of modern art is concerned with the reaction or depiction of an endowed and cultivated sensibility in a civilization dedicated to a shallow hedonism: the worship of cigarettes, TV sets, bowling, beer, and real estate. Many of Louis Simpson's finest poems, in a distinctive and unique way, are centered on this concern. His work prior to At the End of the Open Road (Wesleyan) approaches the situation somewhat objectively and critically; but his Open Road poems display more of a sense of direct personal involvement and a subjective transcension.

In the Pre-Open Road poems, he presents...