Word: vendler
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
THERE'S AN ALMOST MAGICAL land of the imagination where poets congregate, shutting out the rest of the world. Occasionally, a poet invites a critic to this metaphysical enclave; Wallace Stevens has requested Helen Vendler's presence...
...Reading Vendler's Part Of Nature, Part Of Us, a collection of the author's essays and reviews spanning 12 years, makes you feel as though this critic has some unique insight into modern poets and their work. Sometimes, it seems as if she's perched on the edge of that part of Stevens' mind where poetry evolves, watching words become ideas, and ideas become words. Stevens is obviously a favorite of hers--she's included four pieces on him in this book, and written On Extended Wings, a well-received work on Stevens' longer poems...
...Vendler's intimacy with Stevens' mind does not prevent her from establishing highly personal and evocative relationships with many of the other poets in this collection. Reviews of such contemporary giants as Robert Lowell, W.H. Auden, and James Merrill demonstrate her awesome sense of poetic familiarity. Part Of Nature, Part Of Us is a party which any reader interested in contemporary verse-making must attend, for Vendler has marshalled the collective talents of the most significant and well-known poets of the 20th century...
...Vendler's book couldn't have surfaced at a better moment in American literary history. In the last two decades especially, many people have claimed everything from shopping lists to bathroom graffiti to be poetry. Only an authoritative voice like Vendler's can sort these facsimiles out. She does so with sensitivity and skill, always slightly wary of modern poetry in its historical context. In her foreword, she admits...