Turco as poet has tended to preserve and rework Modernist attitudes in our post-Modernist period, and Turco as critic has—how consciously I don't know—taken on the role of valiant defender of the timeless verities of the poet's art against all those who promote confusion by putting first what is properly secondary, for instance by writing "confessional" poetry or striking a "prophetic" stance. (p. 50)

[In] Turco's latest poems, the effects of a warming trend in the poet's mental weather is evident, so that his next volume may be expected to surprise those who have not followed the newest poems as they have appeared in the magazines. The "new" Turco may well appear to be attired and equipped not with greatcoat and club but more in the fashion of Whitman…. (p. 51)

Images of winter, of silence, and of either a cold darkness or a cold whiteness suggest, and...