“By far the most famous poet of his era . . . Lowell transformed American poetry.” —Charles McGrath, The New York Times Magazine

“Robert Lowell was one of the three or four greatest American poets of the twentieth century . . . his real peers are the classics of American literature: Melville and Whitman, Eliot and Frost . . . Lowell's torrential eloquence, his historical consciousness, his moral and political seriousness are a standing challenge.” —Adam Kirsch, The Times Literary Supplement

“Lowell's genius and his grinding labor brought to verse in English not only technical mastery on a scale otherwise scarcely attempted in [the twentieth] century, but then his courage and honesty brought ... a new generosity and dignity to the whole enterprise of poetry.” —John Thompson, The New York Review of Books

“The best American poet of his generation.” —Time

“The subjects of these poems will eventually become extinct, like all other natural species devoured by time, but the indelible mark of their impression on a single sensibility will remain, in Lowell's votive sculpture, bronzed to imperishability.” —Helen Vendler, The Atlantic Monthly