It's not difficult … to see why Fisher has been denied a larger public. For one thing, there's almost no drama in his poems. He says himself, 'In my poems there's seldom / any I or you'—which means there's not only seldom any love poetry, but also seldom any individuated human beings at all. Instead, he offers what he calls the 'music of the generous eye': poems which celebrate the phenomenal world by the clarity with which they perceive it. And when people do stray across his field of vision they frequently seem neither more nor less important than the scenery in which they appear. In fact people and objects are often almost indistinguishable—so much so that their functions are sometimes exchanged….

At first glance, this approach to experience might not seem to include much human interest. But, as Fisher meticulously illustrates, his poems do not substitute purity...