Lorine Niedecker's new collection, Collected Poems 1968: My Life by Water, is a part of a rather long period in contemporary American life, from 1936 to 1968. Many of these poems are reflective of a spare genius, not without occasional impatience with what rankles at the soul—the very personal, yet sociable, tendencies in the life of any artist. Lorine Niedecker's poems reveal a most compassionate awareness of those elements that either impair or sustain the poet's vision in an hour of great turmoil….

The concerns are always close to home and personal in ways peculiarly feminine, yet not in the least precious or "endearing"; above all, there is a good humor, with the eye always alert…. (p. 119)

James Naiden, in Poetry (© 1972 by The Modern Poetry Association; reprinted by permission of the Editor of Poetry), May, 1972.