"David R. Slavitt does not believe in literary criticism so much as in "remarks," and in this witty and unusual work, he remarks on the life of the poet: how it was - and how it is - to be an American writer in our time. Combining personal reminiscence with deft literary analysis, incisive biographical sketches, and, sometimes, literary gossip, the essays in Re Verse give new perspectives on the famous, including Harold Bloom, Robert Penn Warren, Robert Frost, and Stephen Spender, and recover the charms of the nearly forgotten, such as Dudley Fitts, Winfield Townley Scott, Merrill Moore, and John Hall Wheelock."--Jacket.