A Useful Art is an invaluable chronicle of a major American poet's engagement with this country's indigenous tradition of design. In 1936, the Federal Arts Project (a division of the WPA) hired Louis Zukofsky, along with many others, to prepare a compendium of information on traditional American crafts. The Index of American Design aimed to define original U.S. culture at a time when interest in handicrafts had just begun to emerge. These previously unpublished essays and radio scripts are scrupulously researched investigations of various American handicrafts: the topics they cover include ironwork, tin ware, furniture maker Duncan Phyfe and friendship quilts. They also reflect Zukofsky's sense of the poem as