It is too simple (and simply wrong) to say that poets tailor their styles to gratify their critics. But critical demands, even if they do not force a poet to alter his style in a specified way, encourage him to change it in whatever way he will. An American myth of progress, a pioneer faith in Manifest Destiny, still shapes the preconceptions of many critics and poets in our literature. The absence of change, of visible movement, suggests failure. We expect each collection of poems to advance beyond its predecessor. Paradoxically, we often harbor with our demand for development and novelty, a conflicting desire for continuity, a wish to hear once more a voice we recognize. Hard to please, we want Simic to change, but not so much that his poems sound like those of someone else.

On the whole, Simic seems to have met such pressures in...