Michael Fried (born 1939) is as much a poet as he is a critic. His experiences among artworks and art-world luminaries have resulted in a canonized body of criticism, but they have also provided the raw material for many of the poems in his newest collection, Promesse du Bonheur. Fried's passion, lyricism and humor--lauded by authors such as Allen Grossman and J.M. Coetzee--are on display as he explores great minds and great works of art that have moved him. Along the way, Fried reveals himself to the reader: he is at once a student, unsure of himself, a young man, ambitious and in love, a committed champion of artists and a poet, transmuting the world around him. The book combines the 80 poems, a mix of lyric and prose poems, with 33 photographs--most of them made, all of them chosen by renowned American photographer James Welling.