SOURCE: "Verses and Poems," New Republic, Vol. 128, February 9, 1953, pp. 20-21.

In the following review of The First Morning, Friar argues that Viereck has a great deal of technical skill but no poetic voice of his own.

Even if Santayana did write Peter Viereck from Rome: "Oh, then you are a great man," neither the poet nor his publisher should have allowed such a statement to chance gathering a film of dust on what is, after all, a dust jacket. And what can impish Robert Frost be up to with: "Peter Viereck … is the present hope of poetry"—on the same dusty jacket? Indeed, I doubt that Viereck is essentially a poet at all. He writes with a dashing competence in a wide variety of verse forms, meters and modes, but rarely do I find a consistent cadence of his own; these are the old tunes refurbished and slicked...