SOURCE: "Earning the Language: The Writing of Lucien Stryk," in Zen, Poetry, the Art of Lucien Stryk, edited by Susan Porterfield, Swallow Press, 1993, pp. 293-313.

In the following essay, which initially appeared in 1978, Eddy offers an overview of Stryk's poetic career, contending that "in the whole of his writing, we can sense a series of great, daring changes which have formed a poet of rare stature and integrity."

"Just as at fifty a man has the face he has earned, the lineaments of his poems reveal the range and depth of his spiritual life. Simply by surviving I have become a middle-aged poet."

—Lucien Stryk

When you take a walk with contemporary American poetry, you can expect to take some great risks, find real people to love and even get a few laughs; but the trick is that you have to listen with your whole life, not just...