It is a critical commonplace that, in contrast to earlier generations of American poets, no poet born during or after World War II has yet emerged to bridge the gap between "academic" and "experimental" poetry. Although some may celebrate the possibility that the idea of a central tradition has itself been made obsolete by the divergent poetics of the postmodern era, others may justly fear that this Balkanized state of affairs has the side effect of disabling any fruitful cross-pollination between the wide range of poetic styles practiced today. Such considerations are key in assessing the career and likely future importance of James Tate, a poet who stands between the experimentalism of avant-garde strains such as the Language poets and the poetry of personal anecdote currently favored by the academy.

Even though Tate has won his share of mainstream poetic acceptance--the 1967 Yale Younger Poets Prize for The Lost...