children), includes much that was written before the twentieth century. Traditionalists
do not have anything to worry about; children today simply like a varied diet.
Some of the most popular themes for children remain fairly constant—nature, magic,
the sea, the weather, school and family life, adventure—and anything that makes them
laugh. One of the most powerful topics is the exploration of childhood itself. Many poets
write for children because they want (often unconsciously) to understand the ‘child in
themselves’. At worst this can be self-indulgent and full of nostalgia; at best it reaches
the tenderness of Rossetti, the gentle scrutiny of Stevenson, or Rosen’s funny and
unpretentious accounts of everyday life. Adults will always view children through the
‘distorting lens’ of their own dreams, hopes, memories and prejudices: this has led to
some of the most moving and most sentimental poetry ever written.
Until the middle of the eighteenth century, most verse for children was didactic and
severe, expressed through in lessons, fables (with morals, of course) and hymns. For
those who could get their hands on it, what a contrast the rude, crude and dramatic
verse available in the chapbooks must have made. By the early nineteenth century,
significant numbers of poets writing for children aspired to entertain rather than
educate young readers. Harsh moral tales in verse began to develop into the
extravagances of cautionary verse; light-hearted poems about the imaginary doings of
animals became popular; cradle songs and tender expressions of love between children
and parents began to be expressed in poetry for the young. The Victorian period also
ushered in some fine humorists, and nonsense verse became a substantial part of
children’s fare. By then common forms included limericks, narrative poems, ballads,
songs and nursery rhymes. It was virtually all in rhymed, metrically regular verse; free
verse was not predominant until the latter half of the twentieth century. Anthologies of
different poets have rivalled single-poet collections since this period: poets regularly
included are Burns, Clare, Cowper, Goldsmith, Keats, Pope, Shelley and Scott.
A sea-change occurred in the 1970s when poetry for children moved into the city: the
earlier gentle and often rural lyricism turned into something more earthy, harking back,
perhaps, to the bawdiness of the chapbooks. This poetry is closer to the ‘real world’ as
many children—not just middle-class children—may experience it. Gone, largely, are
descriptions of neat nurseries, countryside idylls and sweet fancies. Nature may still be
central, but it is more likely to come in the shape of muscular poetry about animals by
writers like Ted Hughes, or hard-hitting descriptions of how human beings have
destroyed the environment. Humour is widespread, but serious concerns are not
neglected.
As for content, there are few unmentionables left. The late twentieth-century’s attitude
to childhood in poetry is refreshingly robust—too much so for some tastes. Iona Opie’s
recent study of children’s behaviour without adults present, The People in the
Playground (Opie 1992), may have convinced some tender-hearted commentators that
children are by and large hardy and resilient and require a literature which takes
account of that.
Contemporary poetry for children also favours the vernacular and tends to be informal
and unstructured. All the popular forms of the past are still evident; but children’s
poetry also features raps, song-lyrics, dub poetry, haiku, concrete verse, dialect poetry,
dramatic monologues and realistic conversation poems. The recitation of beautiful
188 POETRY FOR CHILDREN