Phyllis McGinley was a poet who, no matter what subject matter she focused on, would seldom, if ever, hear her poetry referred to as anything other than light verse. Born on March 21, 1905, in Ontario, Oregon, and writing her first poem at the age of six and then deciding to be a poet in college after winning several writing competitions, McGinley would spend most of her professional writing career fending off criticism that tended to diminish her image of a suburban housewife poet—an image that was meant to dismiss any depth in her writing.

The fact that McGinley at first enjoyed writing poetry that focused on somewhat lightweight subjects, such as the latest fads, popular news personalities, and trivial day-to-day facets of urban living, and then collecting these poems in her first book, On the Contrary, gave credence to her critics' rather dismissive evaluation of...