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FeaturesSeptember 1996 The multicultural Muse by John Simon On The Best American Poetry 1996 edited by Adrienne Rich The camera only photographs the photographer, runs a line by John Ciardi, perhaps his only good one. Or so my faulty memory recalls it. Similarly, an anthology photographs the anthologist. The Best American Poetry was edited this year by Adrienne Rich; to help convey its contents, I must advert to the poet who chose them. Back in 1951, I was one of three assistants in Archibald MacLeish’s poetry course at Harvard, and a student named Adrienne Rich came to me with an acrimonious complaint. W. H. Auden had just chosen her Yale Younger Poet of the year, yet MacLeish was not paying special attention to her. She had hoped for advanced, personalized treatment, and here she was being denied privileged status. I tried to remonstrate gently, but the Yale Younger Poet-elect indignantly dropped the course. Later that year, Miss Rich gave a poetry reading in Harvard Hall. Knowing my skepticism about th ... This article is available to subscribers and for individual purchaseSubscribe to TNC (Print and Online editions) Subscribe to TNC (Online only) This article originally appeared in The New Criterion, Volume 15 September 1996, on page 42 Copyright © 2010 The New Criterion | www.newcriterion.com http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/multiculturalmuse-simon-3486
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