The voice of these poems is choral, not lyric. They are concerned not with what one person says in one private lyric situation but with what people at large say. They need to go on past the constraints of lyric compression in order to nest personal speech in public speech, public life.

To belabor them for failures of lyric concision, for 'garulity,' misreads them by misunderstanding their aims.

Judges are judged by their judgments and readers are read by their readings.