work has been collected in one volume, Complete Poems for Children (1973). No longer in
vogue and mostly out of print are his near contemporaries, publishing for children in the
1960s, such as Leonard Clark (1905–1981) (Near and Far (1968)); Robert Graves (1895–
1985) (The Penny Fiddle (1960)); E.V.Rieu (1887–1972) (The Flattered Flying Fish and
other poems (1962)); Ian Serraillier (1912–1995) (Happily Ever After (1963)); Edward
Thomas (1878–1917) (The Green Road; Poems for Young Readers (1965)); John Walsh
(1911–1972) (The Roundabout by the Sea (1960)); and Russell Hoban (b. 1925) (The
Pedalling Man (1968)).
Eminent American poets of the century include Laura Richards (1850–1943) whose
Tirra Lirra (1913), draws on her many collections. Of the poets whose writing is mostly
directed at adults, Elizabeth Coatsworth, e.e.cummings, Emily Dickinson, Rachel Field,
Robert Frost, Langston Hughes, Myra Cohn Living-stone, Edna St Vincent Millay, Carl
Sandburg, Theodore Roethke, May Swenson, John Updike and William Carlos Williams
provide, perhaps, the most often anthologised and most distinguished poetry for the
young. Frost and Sandburg made selections of their poems for children, You Come Too
(1959) and Wind Song (1960) respectively; while Emily Dickinson A Letter to the World
(1968) and Langston Hughes Don’t You Turn Back (1969) have recently had selections
published. In Britain the poetry of Edmund Blunden, W.H.Davies, Thomas Hardy, John
Masefield, Elizabeth Jennings and R.S.Thomas was (and is) often chosen for children.
Before the sweeping changes that were to take place in the mid-1970s, two very
distinctive poets produced their first collections for children: Ted Hughes (Meet My Folks
(1961)), and Charles Causley (Figgie Hobbin (1970)).
In the early 1970s a new type of poetry hit the market in the rumbustious form of
Michael Rosen: Mind Your Own Business came out in 1974 and was immediately
successful. Rosen is probably the best-selling poet for children today, but his work
caused a stir with many critics. Is it really poetry? He employs a form of free verse close
to the the rhythms of speech. Is it subversive? Could it be regarded as quality literature
for the young? Rosen mocks his detractors: ‘Is it a poem? Is it a story? Is it a film? Is it a
banana?’ (Styles 1988:89). His poetry is certainly a departure from the past—it centres
on the everyday experiences of children, sometimes exaggerated, written in ordinary
language, peppered with jokes, insults and slang. It is cheeky, sometimes rude, often
poking its tongue out at adult proprieties. Most critics failed to notice the serious side of
Rosen which has always been interspersed with the humour. Rosen is a prolific writer
and anthologist: You Can’t Catch Me (1981), The Hypnotiser (1988), Mind the Gap (1992),
are just a tiny sample of his many collections for children.
John Rowe Townsend calls it ‘urchin verse’: ‘here is family life in the raw, with its
backchat, fury and muddle, and instead of woods and meadows are disused railway
lines, building sites and junkheaps’ (Townsend 1987:303). Simply reading the titles of
the 1970s and 1980s shows how much poetry had changed: it had become irreverent,
street-wise, informal and assertive. Certainly a flurry of collections by a talented group of
poets using similar subject matter to Rosen quickly followed Mind Your Own Business,
but their backgrounds, perspectives on childhood, styles of writing and chosen forms
are distinctive and varied.
Kit Wright teamed up with the cartoonist, Posy Simmonds to produce lively, child-
friendly poems in Rabbiting On (1978), but he was already an established poet, his verse
TYPES AND GENRES 199