The response of one writer to the work of another can be doubly illuminating. In the ´Poet to Poet´ series, a contemporary poet selects and introduces a poet of the past whom they have particularly admired. Robert Lowell (1917-77) was born in Boston. Life Studies, published in 1959, was a watershed in American poetry, initiating an autobiographical project that became the dominating feature of his work. Michael Hofmann was born in Freiburg, Germany, in 1957. He has published four collections of poetry, most recently Approximately Nowhere (1999).