It’s getting dark, little thief of starlight!
It’s getting dark, little thief of starlight!

Summary/Abstract: Genius is, among other things, a gift for making everything hard” (Jarrell 1999: 8). Made in the context of an essay-lecture discussing the Americanness of American poetry, such an assertion could equally be applied to Randall Jarrell himself. In his capacity of literary critic, Jarrell wrote with great insight, wit and erudition, but he was also capable of an unbelievable cruelty when it came to poets he did not like (cf. Spender 1967). His often scathing reviews made it difficult, if not impossible, for those who struck him as “bad poets” to get any kind of literary recognition. As John Berryman remarked, his vehemence against bad poetry blinded him to the fact that, in taking apart poems he disliked, “a human being [was] also being squeezed.” Nevertheless, the critical harshness seems to have stemmed from an intense love for the literary.

• Details
• Contents