The publication of a volume of selected ­poems is an appropriate occasion to appraise a poet’s career, and an equally appropriate occasion to wonder why we use the word “career” in connection with poetry at all. Many readers would agree with Randall Jarrell’s definition of a poet as someone “who manages, in a lifetime of standing out in thunderstorms, to be struck by lightning five or six times.” This assumes that writing poetry is mostly a matter of waiting and hoping, which in turn raises questions about how confident we can be in discussing (to say nothing of criticizing) a poet’s development. As long as the writer in question makes a valiant effort to prepare himself for revelation — as long as he greets every raindrop by waving a putter, like Bishop Pickering in “Caddyshack” — is it really his fault if the lightning striketh not?