[In Open Air Peter Straub] writes a poetry of assured, slow-moving, resonant statement, which is at best potent and at worst ponderous. Technically he is extremely competent, well able to exploit (sometimes over-consciously) dramatic shifts and pauses, working for the most part in drastically cramped and abbreviated units but capable, too, of some expansive imaginative flights. Some of the poems are Crow-like metaphysical musings centred on animals and tinged with a whimsical brand of irony; but the sardonic tone involved in this enterprise can slide too easily into a stilted and mannered language, too knowingly remote from the subject-matter it deals with.

"The State of Ireland," in The Times Literary Supplement (© Times Newspapers Ltd. (London) 1973; reproduced from The Times Literary Supplement by permission), No. 3702, February 16, 1973, p. 183.∗