SOURCE: A review of "The Lost Son," in The New Yorker, Vol. XXV, No. 12, May 15, 1948, pp. 102, 105-06.

major American lyric poet whose darkly romantic verse is characterized by her use of traditional structures, concise language, and vivid description, Bogan is recognized particularly for her honest and austere rendering of emotion. She was also a distinguished critic who served as poetry editor for the New Yorker from 1931 to 1970 and was known for her exacting standards and her penetrating analyses of many of the major poets of the twentieth century. In the following excerpt, Bogan praises The Lost Son as an exploration of emotion and "primordial experience. "

Theodore Roethke's The Lost Son gains a good deal of coherence by sticking to a few absolutely personal themes. In the long poem that gives the book its title, he plunges into his subconscious as into a pond, and brings up all sorts...