Writing in the New York Times Book Review about James Atlas’s biography of Saul Bellow back in 2000, John Leonard– in a markedly diplomatic review of a widely disdained book that was panned by reviewers young (Keith Gessen) and older (James Wood)– was kind enough to say, “Let me be upfront: Almost everything I know about Bellow that I didn’t guess from reading him, I got from the encyclopedic Atlas.” It was kind of Leonard to give some credit to an otherwise discredited book.
Well, there’s nothing to discredit in Meghan O’Rourke’s beautiful essay on the Yale Series of Younger Poets series. Let me be upfront: Everything I know about the Yale Series of Younger Poets, and about Louise Gl??ck’s wonderful recent stewardship of the series, I learned from O’Rourke’s essay on KR Online. I’ve always heard about people who had books with Yale Younger Poets, those who’d been bestowed with the prestige that it affords them, many of them famous poets I’d read. But until reading O’Rourke’s essay– which proves to me that the work one finds on KR Onlline is every bit as impressive as the great work in the print KR– I didn’t know about Peter Streckfus’ The Cuckoo, Richard Siken’s Crush, Jay Hopler’s Green Squall, Jessica Fisher’s Fail-Craft until seeing O’Rourke’s great close readings of their work. I didn’t know the fascinating history of the series. Now I do. You should, too. Go read.