With this letter, sent to an 18 yr old undergrad, Helen Vendler changed my life. I switched my concentration the following year, inspired by her own wild journey from chemistry to literature. She taught me to read. She has been my teacher from 1989 to this day. For 35 yrs.
Today Helen Vendler connected me to Lydia Liu, the Wun Tsun Tam Professor in the Humanities at Columbia, again. Back in 1989 she was a graduate student at Harvard and I was a freshman in her section.
@_sen_sharmila What an act of kindness and encouraging mentorship!
@_sen_sharmila How generous and kind! Wonderful to see.
@_sen_sharmila This is a level of kindness that inspires me. How wonderful to receive this - especially, especially as a young student.
@_sen_sharmila How lovely it is that you have preserved all those letters!
@_sen_sharmila An extraordinary woman. Like my own mentor, J. Hillis Miller, she opened new horizons of interpretation for us, and inspired many to pursue a life in literature. We should all be thankful to that generation.