SOURCE: "Reason, Shape, and Wisdom," in The New Republic, Vol. 184, No. 17, April 25, 1981, pp. 28-32.

Vendler is regarded by many as one of America's foremost critics of poetry. Since the mid-1960s she has contributed reviews and articles on poetry to prominent literary publications, in particular the New York Times Book Review, and since 1978 has served as poetry critic for the New Yorker. In addition to her reviews and articles, Vendler is the author of acclaimed book-length studies of poets W. B. Yeats, George Herbert, Wallace Stevens, and John Keats. Her most noted work, the award-winning collection of criticism Part of Nature, Part of Us: Modern American Poets (1980), is recognized as a thorough and informed view of contemporary American poetry. In the following review, Vendler offers an enthusiastic appraisal of Ammons 's A Coast of Trees and states: "Ammons's own newness … lies in his finely calibrated sense of the...