Helen Vendler (1933–2024) was a leading poetry critic and the author of nineteen books on poets from William Shakespeare to Seamus Heaney. A winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism, she contributed regularly to the New Yorker, the New York Review of Books, the New York Times Book Review, London Review of Books, and the New Republic. She was the Arthur Kingsley Porter University Professor at Harvard University.
[review of Soul Says, The Given and the Made, and The Breaking of
Style] Helen Vendler is justly admired as the author of critical
studies of George Herbert, Keats, W. B. Yeats, and Wallace Stevens.
Her current project is a study of Shakespeare's sonnets. She is
also the most influential reviewer of contemporary poetry in
English: her reviews of new books of poetry appear frequently and
forcefully in The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, The New
Republic, Parnassus, and other journals. Soul Says...is a
collection of her recent reviews...[H]er gifts are so immense...The
new books have a number of such [acute] analyses, continuously
alert to the detail of the poems...One of the pleasures of reading
Vendler's criticism is that of seeing a poet's achievement lavishly
appreciated...The most valuable chapters in the three new books are
those in which Vendler leads us through difficult poems...After
[she does so], the poem is still to be read, and read again, word
by word, line, sequence, image cut into image. We have to get back
from the discursive model, which Vendler so clearly describes, to
the local movement and texture of the poem. But after Vendler's
commentary we are in a much better position to do so. I cannot
think of a better justification for a critic's work.
*New York Review of Books*
[In this] engrossing consideration of lyric form, Vendler again
demonstrates--if proof were needed--why she is the finest poetry
reviewer in this country...The 32 essays include a brilliant
summation of A. R. Ammons' 'Sumerian Vistas' and lively discussions
of Donald Davie's 'Collected Poems,' the menacing midnights of
Charles Simic...Such are Vendler's felicities--inspiriting
enthusiasm for the art and an attendant close reading in which her
readers hear the poet's voice afresh.
*Boston Globe*
Helen Vendler's credentials precede her by a length and a
half...That a non-poet (and an academic to boot) should wield such
influence over American poetry is remarkable...She is at her best
when discussing individual poems or passages, especially in the
cases of a sonnet by Seamus Heaney, when she performs a brilliant
analysis of the relationship of rhyme to reason, and in several
sections of Ashbery's 'Flow Chart'...She believes in a common
reader and wants to elucidate the difficulties of contemporary
poetry.
*Los Angeles Times Book Review*
If there is one commentator on contemporary poetry whose reviews
bear gathering and reprinting, it is Helen Vendler...Vendler's
readings help us to hear, and to discern, the sounds of the soul
speaking.
*World Literature Today*
The English reader wanting to know more about [Rita] Dove and other
recent American writers will find Vendler's enthusiasm infectious
and her acceptance of the poetic art in its own terms helpful. As
well as the essays on Ginsberg and Dove I found the work on
Adrienne Rich, Jorie Graham and Seamus Heaney particularly
valuable.
*STAND Magazine*
[Vendler] discusses the lyric poetry of 23 contemporary poets,
mostly American, including Allen Ginsberg, Rita Dove, James
Merrill, and Dave Smith, giving particular attention to Seamus
Heaney and Jorie Graham. In analyzing individual poems, Vendler
describes the stylistic choices the poet made and how the completed
poem reveals the inner self, or 'soul,' of the poet...Anyone
interested in contemporary poetry can learn from her insights.
*Library Journal*
Vendler's New Yorker reviews of contemporary poetry, collected
here, are revelatory of her critical stance. She does not look for
content, she says in her introduction, but for felicity of
language. A poem, she argues, rises beyond the occasion that
created it. She is interested, then, in poems that define a human
voice and emotion...One of our most accessible critics, Vendler is
fluent, impassioned, and immensely learned.
*Booklist*
[review of Soul Says, The Given and the Made, and
The Breaking of Style] Helen Vendler is justly admired as
the author of critical studies of George Herbert, Keats, W. B.
Yeats, and Wallace Stevens. Her current project is a study of
Shakespeare's sonnets. She is also the most influential reviewer of
contemporary poetry in English: her reviews of new books of poetry
appear frequently and forcefully in The New Yorker, The New York
Review of Books, The New Republic, Parnassus, and other
journals. Soul Says...is a collection of her recent
reviews...[H]er gifts are so immense...The new books have a number
of such [acute] analyses, continuously alert to the detail of the
poems...One of the pleasures of reading Vendler's criticism is that
of seeing a poet's achievement lavishly appreciated...The most
valuable chapters in the three new books are those in which Vendler
leads us through difficult poems...After [she does so], the poem is
still to be read, and read again, word by word, line, sequence,
image cut into image. We have to get back from the discursive
model, which Vendler so clearly describes, to the local movement
and texture of the poem. But after Vendler's commentary we are in a
much better position to do so. I cannot think of a better
justification for a critic's work. -- Denis Donoghue * New York
Review of Books *
[In this] engrossing consideration of lyric form, Vendler again
demonstrates--if proof were needed--why she is the finest poetry
reviewer in this country...The 32 essays include a brilliant
summation of A. R. Ammons' 'Sumerian Vistas' and lively discussions
of Donald Davie's 'Collected Poems,' the menacing midnights of
Charles Simic...Such are Vendler's felicities--inspiriting
enthusiasm for the art and an attendant close reading in which her
readers hear the poet's voice afresh. -- Robert Taylor * Boston
Globe *
Helen Vendler's credentials precede her by a length and a
half...That a non-poet (and an academic to boot) should wield such
influence over American poetry is remarkable...She is at her best
when discussing individual poems or passages, especially in the
cases of a sonnet by Seamus Heaney, when she performs a brilliant
analysis of the relationship of rhyme to reason, and in several
sections of Ashbery's 'Flow Chart'...She believes in a common
reader and wants to elucidate the difficulties of contemporary
poetry. -- R. S. Gwynn * Los Angeles Times Book Review *
If there is one commentator on contemporary poetry whose reviews
bear gathering and reprinting, it is Helen Vendler...Vendler's
readings help us to hear, and to discern, the sounds of the soul
speaking. -- John Boening * World Literature Today *
The English reader wanting to know more about [Rita] Dove and other
recent American writers will find Vendler's enthusiasm infectious
and her acceptance of the poetic art in its own terms helpful. As
well as the essays on Ginsberg and Dove I found the work on
Adrienne Rich, Jorie Graham and Seamus Heaney particularly
valuable. * STAND Magazine *
[Vendler] discusses the lyric poetry of 23 contemporary poets,
mostly American, including Allen Ginsberg, Rita Dove, James
Merrill, and Dave Smith, giving particular attention to Seamus
Heaney and Jorie Graham. In analyzing individual poems, Vendler
describes the stylistic choices the poet made and how the completed
poem reveals the inner self, or 'soul,' of the poet...Anyone
interested in contemporary poetry can learn from her insights. *
Library Journal *
Vendler's New Yorker reviews of contemporary poetry,
collected here, are revelatory of her critical stance. She does not
look for content, she says in her introduction, but for felicity of
language. A poem, she argues, rises beyond the occasion that
created it. She is interested, then, in poems that define a human
voice and emotion...One of our most accessible critics, Vendler is
fluent, impassioned, and immensely learned. -- Patricia Monaghan *
Booklist *
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