Randall had a great flair for the poetry of desperation.

What he could do in poetry he did early and with prodigious security; he was one of our true poets for thirty years and practically the only American poet able…

To have your poems criticized by Jarrell - when they didn't please him - was like meeting your fate, like a foretaste of death. To go with his daunting judgeme…

Your tenderness and terrorization, your prose sentences - like Bernini graves, staggeringly expensive, Italianate, warm, sentences once-and-for-all.

Quel que soit le souci que ta jeunesse endure, Laisse-la s'elargir, cette sainte blessure Que les noirs seraphins t'ont faite au fond du coeur ; Rien ne nous r…

Oh, my Lolita, I have only words to play with!

A poet without love were a physical and metaphysical impossibility.