SOURCE: “Earth Hard: David Ignatow's Poetry,” in Cry of the Human: Essays on Contemporary American Poetry, University of Illinois Press, 1975, pp. 67-133.

In the following excerpt, Mills examines the issues that underlie Ignatow's writing as well as the method by which the poet achieves his impact.

Earth hard to my heels bear me up like a child … 

—David Ignatow

Multitude, solitude: identical terms and interchangeable by the active and fertile poet. 

—Baudelaire

David Ignatow is a latecomer, a dark horse in contemporary American poetry, chiefly because he was never recognized—nor did he think of himself—as a member of the poetic generation to which he properly belongs by age—that is, the generation which includes, among others, Lowell, Berryman, Nims, Schwartz, and Shapiro. He has written steadily in isolation and independence for several decades. His earliest books, Poems (1948) and The Gentle Weight Lifter (1955), were published by small...