Frankly, I'd like [William Meredith] to make me smile but in [The Cheer] I find little to smile at; the cheer is well hidden. I find myself instantly disagreeing, I hope not too solemnly, with Mr. Meredith's claims…. I'm prepared to consent that one man's laughter is another man's poison but I'm amazed to learn that Meredith believes these poems, which deal with such weighty or crusty topics as Robert Lowell, John Berryman, Anne Frank, the Nixon administration, the foreign personalities of parents and the dubious condition of lovers in the year 2075, might make one smile. Not very broadly, is my thought, and with not so wry a twist as when reading the many waspish poems Meredith has already bequeathed us.

If I sum up this group as disappointing I'm no doubt being arrogant because the poet has not surpassed himself. Yet expectation is a diabolic master. If...