Some of the greatest poets--Victor Hugo, Paul Claudel, George Seferis, Pablo Neruda, St.-John Perse--have also been public figures, but in the history of twentieth-century American poetry, Archibald MacLeish stands alone. Born on May 7, 1892, in Glencoe, Illinois, to the craggy but prosperous president of Carson Pirie Scott and an idealistic mother who had been a college president, Archibald MacLeish grew up to become not only a highly regarded poet,...