"Indispensable critic" (New York Times Book Review) and "master entertainer" (Newsweek) Harold Bloom gives us his critical reflections on more than a half century devoted to reading, teaching, and writing about the literary achievement he loves best, and conveys his passionate concern for how a poem should be interpreted and appreciated. By illuminating such subjects as poetic voice, metaphor and allusion, and the nature of poetic value itself, Bloom presents an invaluable learning tool as a key to artistic expression.