SOURCE: "Four Gentlemen, Two Ladies," in The Hudson Review, Vol. 13, No. 1, Spring, 1960, pp. 120-31.

In the following excerpt, Snodgrass provides a favorable appraisal of Valentines to the Wide World.

At least in this present book, there are no large efforts comparable to Scott's "Memento" or "The U.S. Sailor with the Japanese Skull"; consequently there are no comparable major triumphs. At the same time, there are none of the failures or half-resolved poems; each of these poems seems achieved and delightful. Again, in developing her style, [Van Duyn] has not pushed (like Scott) toward a gnarled and crabbed lyricism; she moves instead toward a discursive style in which she tempers her natural awkward prosiness with a quiet and eccentric music. The result is something quite airy, peculiar and gracious. Here is the largest part of one of her poems on the christening of a godson:

    I've thought that...