If the task of reading Delmore Schwartz's poetry seems more difficult than it should be, it may be that one finds it difficult to reconcile the reputation of the poet … with the poems themselves. I make this general and possibly incorrect remark to suggest that [the] recently published selection of Schwartz's poems What Is to Be Given might better serve to revive interest in Schwartz's work if Douglas Dunn's thorough Introduction had been placed as an Afterword. Schwartz's work needs to be properly placed, and the only way this seems possible is for a fair and unprejudiced reading of the poems; this is unlikely to occur if all we hear is, "'We poets in our youth begin in sadness; thereof in the end comes despondency and madness'."

Although Schwartz actually was one of the brilliant poets of that generation including Lowell, Berryman, and Jarrell, the reader may find...