SOURCE: A review of The Art of Worldly Wisdom, in Poetry, Vol. LXXVI, No. 3, June 1950, pp. 156-58.

In the following review of The Art of Worldly Wisdom, Squires claims Rexroth is held back by adherence to a finicky and zealous formal method.

It is a matter for wonder when a poet who is scarcely an old-timer chooses to publish a collection of earlier verse which in no way is likely to add to his reputation. And yet I suppose that the province of a review is not that of questioning the prudence of such a choice, but rather that of examining the effect for whatever interest or use it may have.

Written "in a half decade of transition and foreboding—1927-1932," The Art of Worldly Wisdom contains the usual defects of immaturity: the coyness of the younger poet in the presence of the poets who influence him; the...