Word: ciardi
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Critic John Ciardi's boorish assault on Anne Lindbergh's verse [Feb. 18] sounds suspiciously like the hysterical protest of one who fears that readers may be lured away from the jabberwocky school of modern verse, of which he considers himself the grand high panjandrum...
Poetry should be judged qua poetry, not by the name in the upper left-hand corner of the MS.-so orchids to one John Ciardi for his criticism of Anne Lindbergh's poetry. In The Unicorn, as in all her other books, she sees and thinks and feels with monotonous regularity. She may be a splendid person, but she's a lousy poet. Critic Ciardi is so right, and I'm glad he had the courage to speak...
...most pertinent attack of all came from inside the Review itself. In this week's issue, Editor Cousins took over the editorial page to criticize Critic Ciardi's criticism and to extol Anne Lindbergh. "He has given literalness far more sovereignty than it needs or enjoys in verse." wrote Cousins. "Nor can we accept the adjective 'illiterate' when applied to Mrs. Lindbergh or her books. There are few living authors who are using the English language more sensitively or with more genuine appeal...
...Pernicious Poetry." Cousins hastened to point out that he was not trying to "chastise" his poetry critic and he gave Ciardi space in the same issue to reply to his critics. Ciardi's second salvo was as fiery as the first. "They [are] that sort of pernicious poetry I mean to have none of in SR and . . . they provided an opportunity to offer an essential challenge to the whole pussyfooting process of book reviewing in our national mass media," Ciardi said. "The reader deserves an honest opinion. If he doesn't deserve it, give it to him anyhow...
...Rome, where he is on a leave from his English professorship at Rutgers, Ciardi added more gently: "I think she is a distinguished lady and a great lady indeed -a lady above discussion ... I am not discussing Mrs. Lindbergh, but her performance as a poet." As for Anne Lindbergh, she declined to discuss the matter...