Rolfe Humphries (18941969), in addition to being an outstanding poet, left an impressive trail as a translator, teacher, critic, and editor. But, as Richard Gillman maintains in his introduction, poetry was the driving force behind these other special skills and interests. Humphries was, Gillman writes, an example of "the total poet. . . . If ever there were poets who did in fact breathe their art, he was one of them."

These letters for the first time illumine Humphries and his achievements. We see him as the mentor to younger poets, including Theodore Roethke, providing rare glimpses of...