Born in Chicago, James Schuyler grew up in Washington, D.C., and New York before attending Bethany College in West Virginia. After spending several years in Italy, he returned to the United States and settled in New York City, where he met Frank O'Hara, John Ashbery, and other poets of the New York School. Like them, he wrote for the magazine Art News. His libretto for Paul Bowles's A Picnic Cantata, recorded by Columbia Records in 1955, was followed by a novel, Alfred and Guinevere (1958). His first collection of poems, Salute, appeared in a limited edition in 1960, and he continued to have limited editions published while bringing out his three major volumes of poetry, Freely Espousing (1969), The Crystal Lithium (1972), and Hymn to Life (1974). Schuyler has also written two other novels, A Nest of Ninnies (1969) with John Ashbery and What's for Dinner" (1978), and several plays.

Generally, Schuyler's poems are concerned...