Marvin Hartley Bell was born in New York City, the son of Saul and Belle Spector Bell. He was educated at Alfred University in Alfred, New York, where he received a B.A. in 1958. He briefly attended S...
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Critical Essay by Robley Wilson, Jr.
Marvin Bell does it [well]—this business of articulating a Jewish heritage—and the opening third of Things We Dreamt We Marvin (Hartley) Bell 1937...
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Critical Essay by Steven Ratiner
"Segues" is written by William Stafford and Marvin Bell, two of America's most respected poets. Theirs is an ambitious experiment, and while the q...
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Critical Essay by Arthur Oberg
[From A Probable Volume of Dreams through The Escape into You and Residue of Song]—the three most important books of Marvin Bell which have been published so far&...
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Critical Essay by G. E. Murray
The new work of Marvin Bell … reflects the effects of major alteration in voice and thematic course. From the breezy charm and wit of Bell's earliest poems...
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Critical Essay by David St. John
Stars Which See, Stars Which Do Not See, Marvin Bell's fourth volume, is a disarming book, deceptive in its simplicity and altogether seductive in its beauty. I...
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Critical Essay by Calvin Bedient
For [Stars Which See, Stars Which Do Not See], Marvin Bell has developed a style that steps among silence in plain shoes, making as little noise as possible. Without b...
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Critical Essay by David St. John
What strikes one immediately about Marvin Bell's wonderful new book, These Green-Going-to-Yellow … is the sense of quiet that pervades them and the decep...
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Critical Essay by Peter Stitt
As its title—These Green-Going-to-Yellow—indicates, Marvin Bell's new book is concerned with aging, decay, mutability, mortality. Its central metapho...
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Critical Essay by Publishers Weekly
The Marvin Bell method of writing a poem consists of producing a terrific first line and then refining all possible sequiturs into a whole, if somewhat mysterious, ...
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Critical Essay by David Baker
Marvin Bell does love poetry. He loves the very idea of it. And in Old Snow Just Melting, his new collection of essays and interviews, he loves writing and talking about ...
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