Literary Heavyweights: The Best Sucker Punches

In a recent issue of the New York Review of Books, venerable critic and longtime Harvard professor Helen Vendler panned a new anthology of 20th-century American poetry edited by former U.S. poet laureate Rita Dove. (Vendler found it too inclusive: “No century in the evolution of poetry in English ever had 175 poets worth reading,” she wrote.) The latest issue of the magazine features a 1,720-word letter to the editor by Dove. (“I suppose Vendler would rather I declare a Top Ten.”)