SOURCE: Milburn, Michael. “The Habit of Affection.” Ploughshares 11, no. 4 (1985): 59-77.

In the following essay, Milburn differentiates between poems he loves and those he merely admires, classifying McHugh's “I Knew I'd Sing” in the former category.

People ought to like poetry the way a child likes snow, and they would if the poets wrote it.

—Wallace Stevens

Affection for poems is a personal thing, transcending time, fashion, and even friendship. We return less often to what we admire or approve of than to what we love, and there are surprisingly few poems which we will read again and again just to feel pleasure. We keep what we love close to us, unable to say exactly why one poem sticks in our minds, reciting instead favorite lines as if to say “There, don't you see?” to others' unsatisfactory nods and good intentions. And who has not discovered in print or...