Poetry is the oldest and most universal of arts and, like all the fine arts, it is defined primarily by its formal medium. Yet there is an intrinsic dimension to the poetic that orients it, however vaguely, toward the transcendent, the divine: toward God himself.

That poetry as a form touches on or enters into mysteries greater than itself is one of those facts almost universally acknowledged. The history of literary criticism, from the ancients onward, has largely consisted of various ways of accounting for the nature of this contact rather than disputing the contact itself.

Four news books by poets seek to revive a beleaguered art form.