[After Crosby’s death, Caresse republished four volumes of his poetry in a uniform boxed edition. To match the volume with an introduction by Lawrence, Caresse solicited afterwords for the three other volumes, and obtained results from Stuart Gilbert, T. S. Eliot and Ezra Pound. Pound’s comments were entitled "Notes" and appeared at the close of the latest of the four volumes, Torchbearer.]

… I am not sure that anyone will understand Crosby, in fact I think they will probably misunderstand him completely if they read his pages as promise of work unfulfilled.

There is an antithesis between artist and illuminatus. Perhaps only craftsmen and gens de lettres will boggle and stumble over a matter that the plain man will take as a matter of course. The poet is there to tell him, the plain man, of countries unknown.

…

These points can be discussed in classrooms and amid the foetor of American literary weeklies. Anybody but a blighted pedagogue subsidized to collect washlists and obstruct the onrush of letters will feel an ass in trying to concoct a preface to the magnificent finale. …

Crosby’s disgust seems to me valuable. I have never seen why one should be expected to register pathos instead of disgust in the presence of certain phenomena. Doubtless all temperaments can not be expected to register the same sensation. When a social order ceases to satisfy even those who are most privileged by it, that order is very possibly ready for upset or alteration.

Perhaps the best indication one can give of Crosby’s capacity as a writer is to say that his work gains by being read all together. I do not eman this as a slight compliment. It is true of a small minority only.