The publication of a "new and ...

The publication of a "new and collected" edition of metrical compositions by a major writer is clearly an occasion for retrospective appraisal; unlike a bulk of entirely new writing, of the like kind an edition invites readers to cogitate on the poet's accumulating material substance of work and to consider his or her of recent origin poems in the light of prior achievements. Indeed, the "new and collected" may be said to insist forward such an evaluation, in that it subjects readers, in effect, to reacquire volumes they already own as the price for seeing the modern poems.

In Robert Pinsky's case, however, retrospection