SOURCE: "Louis Zukofsky," in Poetry, Vol. CX, No. 6, September, 1967, pp. 420-22.

Carruth is a well-respected and prolific American poet whose verse is frequently autobiographical, varied in mood and form, and noted for its unadorned and precise language. In the following essay, he contends that in Zukofsky's best poetry linguistic simplicity belies thematic and structural complexity, but finds the remainder of his verse "unexceptional."

When a poet who has written for years in relative obscurity is picked up and "discovered" by a group of his juniors, is republished by them and made a figure in their critical and polemical discussions—as now appears to be the case with Louis Zukofsky—often he finds that the pendulum of his reception has swung from uninformed neglect to uninformed adulation. It must be puzzling to him; and, as we know, it can be harmful too, to him and to everyone concerned. Hence...