Yvor Winters once wrote:
"F.G. Tuckerman was one of the three most remarkable poets of the
nineteenth century. The others were Jonas Very and Emily Dickinson."
Since I had never heard of Tuckerman & Very when I encountered this dictum,
I probably responded with laughter, though later I learned there were quite
a number of true believers. N. Scott Momaday was one, and I suspect poet
laureates Robert Pinsky and Robert Hass were too, at least for a while.
Nineteenth century American lit was never my field, but even today I own
editions of the work of Very and Tuckerman, at least partly because I
respect the collectibility of the Wintersians, no matter how odd some of
the evaluations may seem today.
Barry Alpert
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