Saturday, December 10, 2011

Poetry Slam? -- Rita Dove vs. Helen Vendler

The poetry world isn't always a peaceful place. Especially when a poet is given the job of creating an anthology and a famous critic disagrees with her choices. Recently Penguin books published an anthology of American poetry, edited by former poet laureate Rita Dove. Helen Vendler, Harvard professor and long-time poetry critic, wrote a scathing review published in The New York Review of Books, criticizing Dove's choices as too heavily influenced by political choices. (Dove's anthology includes a large percentage of African American poets.) At one point in her review Vendler attempts to attribute Dove's critical acumen to her being a poet, not an essayist. Dove, in an essay rebuttal of Vendler's review, takes the critic to task in the upcoming December 22 issue of the New York Review of Books according to The Atlantic Wire, an online publication of the venerable magazine.

What counts as poetry in America is rich and varied, but when a major publishing house attempts publishes a book that threatens to change the course of the canon--that is, the few poets selected for inclusion in a volume of what counts as the best of American poetry--some critics, in this case Vendler, get energized. For almost forty years Vendler has been an arbiter of taste in the poetry establishment. She has had the power to make or break careers. Earlier in her poetry career, Vendler praised Dove's work as a poet. But apparently, Vendler is not impressed with Dove's work as a critic--or, she is threatened by someone who has dared to create an arrangement counter to Vendler's taste. Who is to judge? There's no respectable way to do this without reading the book, which means the poets win--they get more readers!

For an in-depth interview with Dove by Jericho Brown and more insights into the editing and publishing process, see the Best American Poetry blog.

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