A volume in the Poets on Poetry series, which collects critical works by contemporary poets, gathering together the articles, interviews, and book reviews by which they have articulated the poetics of a new generation.

In The Failure of Poetry, The Promise of Language, Laura (Riding) Jackson examines the subjects of poetry, language, and truth; the conflict between truth and art; and the range of human attitudes to the prospect of truth-speaking. Also included are a series of comments on and judgments of the poets Coleridge, Clare, Eliot, Frost, Vachel Lindsay, Lowell,...