SOURCE: A review of Strange Holiness, in Saturday Review of Literature, Vol. XI, No. 40, April 20, 1935, p. 639.

In the following excerpt, Benét reviews Coffin's Strange Holiness, praising the poems for the quality of their workmanship and subject matter but regretting that, in them, the poet has not surpassed his previous work.

Robert P. Tristram Coffin is a fecund poet. His latest book, Strange Holiness, is in contrast to his latest one before that, Ballads of Square-Toed Americans, in that this is subjective as that was objective. I am only afraid that Mr. Coffin may have a fatal facility. He shapes and turns his poems well, and he usually has something not only interesting to write about but also seen and felt. Also, his phrase is often extremely good. Moreover, the devotional element in these poems has nothing mawkish about it. One feels that the poet pleasured himself in...