The Music of What Happens

Vendler’s is an ample book…and will give us enough to go on digesting and arguing about, approving and resisting, for a long time yet. -- Charles Tomlinson * Times Literary Supplement *
The Music of What Happens, with its deft, precise treatment of the configurative strategies of Ashbery, Heaney, Ginsberg, Sexton, and others reminds us why, ultimately, we might put the newspaper down and read a poem instead. -- Robert Lindsey * Bloomsbury Review *
Any criticism that develops so complex a sense of what really good poetry does, and develops it so lovingly, is to be cherished. -- Alan Williamson * Boston Globe *
Vendler is essential, whether one delights or despairs in her views. More, The Music of What Happens is the essential Vendler. -- G. E. Murray * Chicago Tribune *
Polite, decisive, and insightful, Vendler is our most distinguished critic of modern poetry. In this collection she deals with writers as diverse as Donald Davie and A. R. Ammons… It is her own likes and dislikes, tirelessly examined and cross-examined, that give her frequent bursts of critical eloquence the foundation of truth. * Choice *