These memoirs of the distinguished

poet, Horace Gregory, are a fitting

crown to his poetic achievement. Six

volumes of verse, the best now in-

cluded in his Collected Poems; three

sensitive translations of Latin verse;

and many critical essays and reviews

have established Mr. Gregory as a

distinctive, elegiac poet whose "emo-

tional range is perhaps the most com-

prehensive among modern poets."

[Elizabeth Drew] In this autobiogra-

phy he taps the source of his keenly

ironic vision of the human predica-

ment--a spiritual journey that began

in his grandfather s house on Mil-

waukee s Jefferson Street and moved

eastward through the literary worlds

of Chicago, New York, London, and

onto his family s heritage in Ireland.

The odyssey reveals the individ-

ual s quest for identity, the exiled

artist seeking a homeland. The young

Horace, the frail middle child set apart

from the complacent bourgeois poli-

tics of Wisconsin, is fascinated by the

theater; attends the new poetry recit-

als of Frost, Sandburg, and Lindsay;

and meets Harriet Monroe who en-

courages his poetry. His move to New

York during Prohibition conjures up

the misery of that era, the uncertain-

ties of freelance writing, the passion

behind his first book of poems; then

follows marriage to the poet Marya

Zaturenska, a move toward Leftist