SOURCE: “The Excellence of ‘Excellence,’” in Field, No. 25, Fall, 1981, pp. 15-18.

In the following essay, Wallace discusses the poem “Excellence” as an example of the formal elements of Francis's poetry which make his works “magical.”

“excellence”

Excellence is millimeters and not miles. From poor to good is great. From good to best is small. From almost best to best sometimes not measurable. The man who leaps the highest leaps perhaps an inch Above the runner-up. How glorious that inch And that split-second longer in the air before the fall. 

In an era of the Avant-Avant-Garde, Robert Francis, who can be passionate without being puffy, is a poet daringly Horatian. Ars celare artem. The art is to hide the art. Like Herbert or Herrick a technician, a metrical Swiss-watchmaker, fond of the chime and the golden cogs, he happily relishes versing. His poems wound us cleanly by their diminutive...