SOURCE: "Inside Story," in The New Republic, Vol. 105, No. 1, July 14, 1941, p. 62.

An American poet and translator, Humphries published several volumes of verse and translated works by the Spanish poet and dramatist Federico Garcia Lorca and the classical writers Ovid, Virgil, Juvenal, and Lucretius. In the following review, Humphries declares Open House an honest and impressive debut collection that demonstrates Roethke has much promise as a poet.

The title of [Open House], and the opening lines of the title poem, at once give the reader to understand that much of the material to follow will be largely self-centered:

 My secrets cry aloud.
I have no need for tongue.
My heart keeps open house,
My doors are widely swung.
An epic of the eyes
My love, with no disguise. 

Throughout the several sections of the book, varied as they are in manner and theme, the tendency is to revert to...