SOURCE: "Has Anyone Seen a Trend?," in The Saturday Review, New York, Vol. XLII, No. 1, January 3, 1959, pp. 12-14, 32.

A New England poet in the tradition of Robert Frost, Scott was a conventional lyricist who favored a straightforward, uncluttered style in his many biographical and story poems. In the following excerpt, he praises Swenson's talent but chastises her excessive cleverness in A Cage of Spines.

On Swenson's poetic skill:

Nobody writes poetry quite like May Swenson anymore. She is a genuine anomaly: mischievous, inquisitive in the extreme, and totally given over to the task of witnessing the physical world. …

Never solemn or self-indulgent, eschewing the big finale, Swenson is intent on noticing everything around her while preferring herself to remain in the wings. Sometimes she subjugates the self to such an extent that it may seem on the verge of disappearing altogether from the poem. But her language is...