In the cover notes to Richard Tillinghast's second book of poems, The Knife and Other Poems …, James Dickey dubs the author "the best poet of the younger generation." Now James Dickey is no easy critic to satisfy, and indeed one cannot read Tillinghast's poems without being impressed by the considerable skill they display. One listens in admiration, for example, to frequent virtuoso verbal performances:

           The cold moon led us coldly
            —three men in a motorboat—
           down foggy canals before dawn
            past cut sugarcane in December….

Such passages [as this one from "Shooting Ducks in South Louisiana"] characterize the poetry, evidencing the poet's sharp ear and his attention to the nuances of rhythmic variations. Sound is indeed masterfully handled here, as is space, the lines creatively exploring the printed page throughout. In these verbal matters, as in much of the imagery and in the occasional explicit attributions to his...