Poetry is innocent, not wise. It does not learn from experience, because each poetic experience is unique.

More recent editions of his work include The Wild Card: Selected Poems Early and Late (1998) and Selected Poems (2003). In his later work he experimented with more open forms beginning with The Bourgeois Poet (1964) and continuing with White-Haired Lover (1968). The influences of Walt Whitman D.

He was appointed the fifth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1946.