SOURCE: "Patter, Distraction, and Poetry," New Republic, Vol. 121, No. 6, August 8, 1949, p. 17.

In the following review, Fitzgerald calls most of Viereck's poetry "patter" and doubts that there is much in Terror and Decorum that readers will study or reread for pleasure.

The Pulitzer Prize for 1948 was awarded to Peter Viereck, whose Terror and Decorum is a novelty among first books of poems. The poet seems to have been prepared for fame: he has forestalled his bibliographers by including a two-page list of all his poems, with their original titles and the periodicals wherein they appeared or were reprinted, and a page entitled "Prose by Peter Viereck" listing his articles and book reviews. The fact that one article was in French and one in Italian hints at his linguistic attainments, and his travels are attested by the place names that accompany many poems—Stonehenge, Carthage, Athos, Assisi, the Borghese Gardens...