Rita Dove

Helen Vendler, Rita Dove, and the Changing Canon of Poetry

The titans are clashing in the world of poetry. Over Thanksgiving, literary critic Helen Vendler published a savage review of a new anthology, “The Penguin Anthology of Twentieth-Century American Poetry.” The book was edited by Rita Dove, a former Poet Laureate. Dove  responded  to Vendler’s scathing review with an equally  vitriolic  reply. Vendler is white, and Dove is black, […]