Helen Vendler is A. Kingsley Porter University Professor of English at Harvard University. Her most recent books include "Poets Thinking: Pope, Whitman, Dickinson, Yeats; Coming of Age As a Poet: Milton, Keats, Eliot, Plath"; and "Seamus Heaney". Her reviews of contemporary poetry and criticism have appeared in the "New York Review of Books", the "New Yorker", the "New Republic", and other publications.

"Helen Vendler['s] ... Invisible Listeners, a compact study of "lyric intimacy" in three poets, demonstrates, if you have forgotten, some of the best reasons to read literary criticism."--Langdon Hammer, The New York Times Book Review "[A] compact and lively little book... Vendler's brisk and light touch, her ability to pick at a line for every bit of meaning, makes this an enjoyable and moving book."--Angela Leighton, Times Literary Supplement "As poetry is not read but re-read, so Vendler's handsome analysis should be, the art of engaged reading."--Leeta Taylor, Foreword Magazine

• Acknowledgments xi Introduction Invisible Listeners 1 CHAPTER ONE: George Herbert and God 9 CHAPTER TWO: Walt Whitman and the Reader-in-Futurity 31 CHAPTER THREE: John Ashbery and the Artist of the Past 57 Conclusion Domesticating the Unseen 79 Notes 81 Index 91

Helen Vendler is A. Kingsley Porter University Professor of English at Harvard University. Her most recent books include "Poets Thinking: Pope, Whitman, Dickinson, Yeats; Coming of Age As a Poet: Milton, Keats, Eliot, Plath"; and "Seamus Heaney". Her reviews of contemporary poetry and criticism have appeared in the "New York Review of Books", the "New Yorker", the "New Republic", and other publications.

"Helen Vendler['s] ... Invisible Listeners, a compact study of "lyric intimacy" in three poets, demonstrates, if you have forgotten, some of the best reasons to read literary criticism."--Langdon Hammer, The New York Times Book Review "[A] compact and lively little book... Vendler's brisk and light touch, her ability to pick at a line for every bit of meaning, makes this an enjoyable and moving book."--Angela Leighton, Times Literary Supplement "As poetry is not read but re-read, so Vendler's handsome analysis should be, the art of engaged reading."--Leeta Taylor, Foreword Magazine

• Acknowledgments xi Introduction Invisible Listeners 1 CHAPTER ONE: George Herbert and God 9 CHAPTER TWO: Walt Whitman and the Reader-in-Futurity 31 CHAPTER THREE: John Ashbery and the Artist of the Past 57 Conclusion Domesticating the Unseen 79 Notes 81 Index 91

Helen Vendler is A. Kingsley Porter University Professor of English at Harvard University. Her most recent books include "Poets Thinking: Pope, Whitman, Dickinson, Yeats; Coming of Age As a Poet: Milton, Keats, Eliot, Plath"; and "Seamus Heaney". Her reviews of contemporary poetry and criticism have appeared in the "New York Review of Books", the "New Yorker", the "New Republic", and other publications.

"Helen Vendler['s] ... Invisible Listeners, a compact study of "lyric intimacy" in three poets, demonstrates, if you have forgotten, some of the best reasons to read literary criticism."--Langdon Hammer, The New York Times Book Review "[A] compact and lively little book... Vendler's brisk and light touch, her ability to pick at a line for every bit of meaning, makes this an enjoyable and moving book."--Angela Leighton, Times Literary Supplement "As poetry is not read but re-read, so Vendler's handsome analysis should be, the art of engaged reading."--Leeta Taylor, Foreword Magazine

• Acknowledgments xi Introduction Invisible Listeners 1 CHAPTER ONE: George Herbert and God 9 CHAPTER TWO: Walt Whitman and the Reader-in-Futurity 31 CHAPTER THREE: John Ashbery and the Artist of the Past 57 Conclusion Domesticating the Unseen 79 Notes 81 Index 91