The Muse of Abandonment examines personal and cultural forms of abandonment in the poetry of Charles Wright, Russell Edson, Jean Valentine, James Tate, and Louise Gluck. The first book to consider these poets as members of a generation, this work explores the five poets' reflections on coercion of thought and behavior and an atmosphere in contemporary culture that would trivialize private sensibility. The poets' recasting of confessional and surrealist legacies is also analyzed.