This poetry book was interesting. It has selections from each of his book, the first ones published in 1960 and the last in 1990. I think the most interesting thing to see was how much Kinnell’s style changed over time, also seeing what influence history had on what was being written. You definitely get a sense of the war years in his late 60’s work. His early work was abstract in meaning—I honestly didn’t understand any of it, but the images were incredibly sharp. “Springs that used to resist love, that gave in/And were thrown out like whores—”. All kinds of very memorable phrases and these absolutely gorgeous word combinations. So vivid. So beautifully crafted. Mmm. Delicious. All of that faded in the 80’s. His style changed quite a bit, becoming less structured which I think could have been a good step, but he lost all his sharp images. To be honest, I skipped a lot of the later poems because I got tired of the book. Those poems were more straightforward meaning-wise, but didn’t hold my interest with grounded imagery like the ones that seemed meaningless but were beautiful.