![]() ![]() In The Bat-Poet, Jarrell's poetic investigations specifically center on navigating the schism evident in the so-called anthology wars, the opening skirmish of which was the publication of Donald Hall, Robert Pack, and Louis Simpson's anthology The New Poets of England and America (1957). Kennedy primarily use their children's books as venues for intensified language play, Jarrell uses his children's books-specifically The Bat-Poet (1964)-to work through his theoretical notions of poetry, exploring the postmodern tendencies of contradiction and opposition that are apparent also in his adult work. ![]() ![]() He attended closely to the contemporary scene and in no small part helped write the canon of American poetry.1 While several adult poets were beginning to write for children in this period-notably John Ciardi, whose first book for children, The Reason for the Pelican, was published in 1959-Jarrell's forays into children's poetry are considerably different from most.2 Whereas Ciardi, Theodore Roethke, and, later, X.J. During this time, Randall Jarrell was one of the preeminent critics of American poetry and was certainly well established as a poet. The late 1950s and early 1960s were marked by a profound schism in the world of adult poetry. The raw, huge, blood-dripping gobbets of unseasoned experiences dished up for midnight listeners. The cooked, marvelously expert, often seems laboriously concocted to be tasted and digested by a graduate seminar. Two poetries are now competing, a cooked and a raw. ![]()
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