The preface is interesting in how it shows how derided ED was for so long, even up into 1980. Howe also uses the WCW quote about ED as her jumping off point to deal with how ED is seen, though she is quite fair to WCW in saying what he meant was that poets aren’t men or women, they are poets first “salted with fire”.

She talks about Thoreau wanting to get in a boat and see where the river takes him. I did that too.