Yet it is possible that the topicality of his poetry—one of its strongest virtues—and the fact that the poet is now a soldier in Australia may distract attention from the literary feat performed in this book [Person, Place, and Thing]. The feat is that of taking the style of Auden and transforming it with an American subject matter, by writing of drugstores, lunch wagons, a conscription camp, a midnight show, a Buick, and many other things equally indigenous.