Though she came to prominence late in her career, Guest (1920–2006) remains less well-known and less well-understood than fellow New York School poets John Ashbery, Frank O'Hara, Kenneth Koch and James Schuyler. Like them, Guest (who was an editorial associate at Art News
from 1951 to 1959) has multiple threads from the visual arts running through the 20-odd books and chapbooks collected here, but what this collection reveals more than anything else is the striking, cohesive majesty of Guest's tone, which can be at once funny, deep and full of Eros while pursuing some pretty difficult images and ideas: “Vases! Throats! Lactations!/ The milk of time in the reservoir moon/ Stones with cloud currents as sylphs/ in nightclothes swim, moon on thicket/ stems climb vases, wastrels” (from “The Türler Loses”). Guest's three masterworks—Moscow Mansions
(1973), Fair Realism
(1989) and Defensive Rapture
(1993)—are worth the price of admission alone, but surprises like the hilarious The Countess from Minneapolis
(1976) or steely and charming late work like Rocks on a Platter
(1999) and Miniatures
(2002) might end up being many readers' favorites. This book, one of the year's essential releases, should be part of any library of 20th-century American poetry. (July)
