SOURCE: "The Cunning and the Craft of the Unconscious and the Preconscious," in Selected Essays of Delmore Schwartz, edited by Donald A. Dike and David H. Zucker, The University of Chicago Press, 1970, pp. 197-99.

A prominent figure in American literature, Schwartz created poems and stories that are deeply informed by his experiences as the son of Jewish immigrants. His verse often focuses on middle-class New York immigrant families whose children are alienated both from their parents and from American culture and society. Schwartz explored such themes as the importance of self-discovery, the necessity of maintaining hope in the presence of despair, free will versus determinism, and the machinations of the subconscious. In the following review, which was originally published in 1959, he compares the verse in Words for the Wind to the poetry of William Butler Yeats.

It is sufficiently clear by now that Theodore Roethke is a very...