T.S. Eliot famously observed in his great poem, “The Four Quartets,” that April is the cruelest month. Economists quote this line every year during the first two weeks of that month when referencing ...

in Poe’s “system” of Tarr and Fethering (fathering). The kind of poetry I want gums up the works. A tangle of truths. From the outset of his career Bernstein has fought for a poetry of leaps and ...

AMERICAN POETRY now belongs to a subculture. No longer part of the mainstream of artistic and intellectual life, it has become the specialized occupation of a relatively small and isolated group.

Helen Vendler is one of the most respected commentators on English-language poetry in our time. Readers coming to this book hoping for wise, well-found instruction will not be disappointed; they will ...