Helen Vendler
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Helen Vendler Helen Vendler
Poetry critic, Helen Vendler takes on the poetry editor Alice Quinn of The New Yorker for editing ''Edgar Allan Poe & the Juke-Box: Uncollected Poems, Drafts and Fragments,'' by Elizabeth Bishop, one of the most respected of American poets. Vendler's argument reflects a long-running debate about what to do with the unpublished work, ranging from manuscripts and drafts to letters and diaries of dead writers, from Keats to Kafka and beyond. ''Had Bishop been asked whether her repudiated poems and some drafts and fragments, should be published after her death, she would have replied, I believe, with a horrified 'No,' '' she writes. In a scathing review that appeared in the April 3 issue of The New Republic, Helen Vendler, arguably the country's most prominent poetry critic, takes on Alice Quinn of The New Yorker, arguably the country's most prominent poetry editor, for editing ''Edgar Allan Poe & the Juke-Box: Uncollected Poems, Drafts and Fragments,'' by Elizabeth Bishop, one of the most respected of American poets. 