BOOKS
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poems? As with most anthologies, if not all, reviewing them is often
a matter of supplying a checklist of one's omitted favorites . But by
beginning with Stevens (born in 1879), under cover of the specious
argument that he flowered late, Vendler produces a selection that is
at least distinctive and at most rather bizarre. The omissions are
sometimes quite noticeable: Olson, of course, and Creeley (not Keat–
sian enough, I presume, despite a truly "distinctive manner"), and
Levertov and Dorn, and many others. Surely skill alone was not a
criterion, or we would have been spared some or all of the ten pages
of Sexton . Stature, too, must not have been a stringent considera–
tion or else, with due respect, why would she have included Michael
Blumenthal or Rita Dove? And balance: well, Ashbery has over
twenty-five pages, while Merwin, Snyder, and Pinsky get only five
each. Comprehensiveness has also been sacrificed, as we see Pinsky,
Bidart, and Gluck, but no Robert Hass; Wilbur and Nemerov, but
no Hollander, Howard, or Kunitz. Ammons has part of his book–
length
Sphere
excerpted, and there's no "Corson's Inlet," the small
masterpiece "Center" is missing, and so on. Thus the selections from
individual poets might be read as attempts to "correct" the current
profile that has developed for each - she claims "readers can see the
poets whole" - but I think this is hardly likely. The Lowell selection,
for a counter example, is exactly what you would expect. As with post–
Romantic poetry, perhaps, this is a selection only the anthologist
need understand.
Few would envy the anthologist's agonies, faced with some–
thing like a gross parody oflife's abundances and denials, but still we
must remember that it's a task for which you volunteer. Of course if
you choose, as Vendler did, to have "fewer poets, and represent
them by more poems, rather than have more poets with fewer poems
each," then you not only display your own taste but also make a bid
to influence the making of the canon. With such a bid your assump–
tions become subject to close scrutiny and severe counter-judgement.
Doubtlessly, Vendler is assured her judgement and taste are impec–
cable. But by the rules of the American tradition, and on the basis of
this particular anthology, they are far from unassailable .
CHARLES MOLESWORTH
