Autobiography is as good a place as any for new readers of Zukofsky to begin. Its warning is direct, a caution sign to those who would do other than read the words of the poet. Its gifts, its songs, tell the reader of the poet's achievement: an art of precision, intellectual range, simplicity, and, above all, of grace.

Mathematicians are fond of using the word "elegance" to signify the sum of such characteristics. It is, in many ways, the perfect word to express the totality of effect Zukofsky's work achieves, for even on those occasions when the poet misses the mark … one is convinced of the irreducible quality of the language. But by bringing in the idea of elegance at this point I have something more in mind, the variety of ways in which Zukofsky's poetry can be imaged as a series of processes, movements, and equations which...