The good poet sticks to his real loves, those within the realm of possibility. He never tries to hold hands with God or the human race.

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.