SOURCE: A review of New and Selected Poems, in The Kenyon Review, Vol. XXXII, No. 128, 1970, pp. 176–81.

In the following review, Boyers praises Wagoner's poetry for its acrobatic ability to sustain balance as it chronicles the nature of living as continuous movement.

David Wagoner seems to me one of our best poets, perhaps one of the best we have ever had in this country. I say “perhaps” because there is so much one might expect him still to explore, to attempt, that is as yet untouched in his verse, for Wagoner is a young man, his gifts are great, his commitment to craft exemplary. Which is to say, like any poet, Wagoner has his limitations, and, like the best poets, these limitations seem more a function of his strengths than a reflection of fundamental weaknesses in vision, feeling, or invention.

Wagoner is certainly not the sort of poet who...