Did the Roman master (Horace, Catullus, Martial, Propertius, Ovid) leave as many excellent poems amongst the whole lot of them, as (James Laughlin) did on his own?" asks Jonathan Williams. Marjorie Perloff has written, "Who else . . . writes such bittersweet, ironic, rueful, erotic, toughminded, witty love poems, poems that run the gamut from ecstasy to loss?"