Peter Davison was born in New York City, the son of British poet Edward Davison and Natalie Weiner Davison. The conflicting heritages of his immigrant English father and assimilated Jewish mother are among the most powerful influences on his poetry. Much of his early work explores his complexly ambivalent feelings toward his parents. A number of poems in particular are both tributes to and revolts against the figure of his father. In Half Remembered: A Personal History (1973), Davison discusses his relationship with his parents, in the process revealing the origin and significance of many of his best poems.

Despite his interest in personal history and experience, Davison's life has not been especially unusual. When he was still a young boy his father introduced him to the English poets and the cadences of the King James Bible. He traveled widely in America and Europe with his parents, who eventually...