Toward the Open Field brings together many of the great prose pieces—essays, letters, declarations, defenses, manifestos, and apologia—by the most influential European and American poets from the Romantics to the Symbolists, Surrealists, and Moderns.

We know what happened when the Shelleys gathered by candlelight one summer to tell ghost stories; now imagine the wind has blown the villa’s doors open again to welcome 25 of poetry’s immortals—a brilliant congeries of voices. - Sandra Alcosser

This book will be like having all one’s favorite poets gathered in one room, accompanied by a stunningly compact and comprehensive introduction which locates each in the luminously executed arc of the entire collection. - Patricia Goedicke