Acknowledgments Introduction: The Level of Words 1: The Rhapsodic Fallacy 2: Three Essays on Confession I: Pure Feeling II: Pure Pain III: Applied Poetry 3: A New Sweetness: Randall Jarrell and Elizabeth Bishop 4: The Romance of the Perceptual: The Legacy of Wallace Stevens 5: The Signatures of Things: On Howard Nemerov 6: Deeper Than Declared: On Seamus Heaney 7: "Irreference": On John Ashbery 8: The Cure of Poetry Conclusion: The Poet's Calling: On a New Model of Literary Apprenticeship Notes Index