Ciardi possesses an authentic poetic voice with a technical mastery of his craft to match his spiritual affinity for it. (p. 21)

[Ciardi] focuses with remarkable clarity on the elements upon which one builds a theme into a poem. Ciardi is passionate about writing poetry; he recognizes full well the axiom that it is the poem which gives the theme its force.

It is in the poetic handling of his subjects (i.e., the "rhythm, diction, image, and form") that Ciardi reveals his poetic principles most clearly, and here we find him very consistent. He most often uses, for example, a closed "form." That is, his poems are normally tightly contained in traditional stanzas, although he frequently spreads syntactical units from one stanza to another. Containment of this sort extends from individual stanzas to entire poems, creating an unmistakable sense of completion, but completion in a Ciardi poem is...