September 2, 2015
The Daniel Swiftboating of Helen Vendler
The knives are out again for Helen Vendler. In a recent review for The Spectator, Daniel Swift accuses the poetry critic of performing a bloodless “scientific evaluation of literature.” Her […]
August 16, 2013
The Anthology Blues, or, A Very Modest Proposal
It’s like the long-delayed return of a plague we were sure had taken its last victims: the debate over the Penguin Anthology of Twentieth-Century American Poetry has risen, zombie-like. Just […]
January 5, 2012
Mix Tape: The New Year (“So this is the new year, and I don’t feel any different”)
Helen Vendler goes after The Penguin Anthology of Twentieth-Century American Poetry, edited by Rita Dove. “Multicultural inclusiveness prevails: some 175 poets are represented. No century in the evolution of poetry […]
December 28, 2011
Blog Post: Two Revisitings
I read over my first posts to see if the remove of time could add any insight. It’s like sitting on a “finished” poem to see if it’s still good […]
December 15, 2011
Mix Tape: Popular Muses
Check out the How a Poem Happens blog. In the latest post, John Drury talks about inspiration. “Yes, I like being ambushed by memory and imagination, and I do what […]
December 14, 2011
What’s in a Name?
The controversy continues regarding The Penguin Anthology of Twentieth-Century American Poetry, edited by Rita Dove. The barest outline of the issue is as follows: Helen Vendler, in the New York […]