BOOKS
Singing in Time. Dundee (Scotland): J.W.B. Laing, 1972. (poems)
Theodore Roethke: An American Romantic. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 1979. (criticism)
The Love Run. Atlantic-Little, Brown, 1980. (novel)
Anthracite Country. New York: Random House, 1982. (poems)
The Patch Boys. New York: Henry Holt, 1986. (novel)
An Invitation to Poetry. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1987. (textbook)
Town Life. New York: Henry Holt, 1988. (poems)
The Last Station. New York: Henry Holt, 1990. (novel)
Bay of Arrows. New York: Henry Holt, 1992. (novel)
Columbia History of American Poetry, editor, with Brett Millier. New York: Columbia University Press, 1994.
Columbia Anthology of American Poetry (1995), editor. New York: Columbia University Press, 1995.
John Steinbeck: A Biography. New York: Henry Holt, 1995.
Gore Vidal: Writer Against the Grain, editor. New York: Columbia University Press, 1996. (criticism)
Benjamin's Crossing. New York: Henry Holt, 1996. (novel)
Some Necessary Angels: Essays on Literature and Politics. New York: Columbia University Press,, 1997. (criticism)
Beyond "The Godfather" : Italian American Writers on the Real Italian American Experience, editor, with A. Kenneth Ciongoli. Hanover, N.H.: University Press of New England, 1997.
House of Days. New York: Henry Holt, 1998. (poems)
The Norton Book of American Autobiography, editor. New York: W.W. Norton, 1998.
Robert Frost: A Life. New York: Henry Holt, 1999.
The Apprentice Lover. New York: HarperCollins, 2002. (novel)
Passage to Liberty: The Story of Italian Immigration and the Rebirth of America, with A. Kenneth Ciongoli. New York: Random House, 1992.
The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Literature (2004) – four volumes, editor. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.
World Writers in English, editor. New York: Scribner, 2004.
One Matchless Time: A Life of William Faulkner. New York: HarperCollins, 2004.
The Art of Teaching. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.
The Art of Subtraction: New and Selected Poems. New York: Braziller, 2005.
The Wadsworth Anthology of Poetry, editor. Boston: Wadsworth, 2005.
Why Poetry Matters. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008. (criticism)
Promised Land: Thirteen Books that Changed America. New York: Doubleday, 2008. (criticism)
Last Steps: Late Writings of Leo Tolstoy, editor. London and New York: Penguin, 2009.