Letter to an imaginary friend, parts I & II / Thomas McGrath

This text is a collection of long form poetry, and as such does not contain a table of contents.

"When Part I of Letter To An Imaginary Friend was published in 1962, it was recognized as one of the finest long poems in a generation. The addition of the just-completed Part II brings McGrath's "pseudo-autobiography" into the present and his form to a new stage of development. The poem gives an account of nearly forty years of the poet's life, ranging backwards in both parts from the epistolary present into the past. The images and events discovered there, particularly in McGrath's North Dakota childhood, move in and out of the whole poem, ordering its perception of all subsequent events. McGrath is not, however, just a poet of keen memory and personal reminiscence; Letter To An Imaginary Friend is also an account of American history, politics, and economics for the depressed middle of the 20th century. This combination of the elegiac and the social is present in every part of the poem." -- From the book jacket.