of course, an opportunity to observe the observer,
to gain insight into the poetic consciousness caught
in the act of transforming life into art. These
observer poems stand as evidence that the poet
may indeed play a role in his dramatic poem, if
only as a supporting actor.
Robert Pinsky has commented that, although
the use of a borrowed voice or alter-identity
‘‘... partly distinct from the poet, constitutes one
of the most widely noted... and fundamental
aspects of modernism,’’ certain recent poets have
employed ‘‘a speaker or protagonist who is not
only dramatic, but somewhat eccentric [to] present
a statement about oneself’’ ([The Situation of
Poetry] 14). In his use of personae, Randall Jarrell
is able, as Pinsky implies, to be both dramatic and
confessional and realize the full benefits of both
poetic strategies. The Jarrell who saw no disconti-
nuity between romanticism and modernism would
no doubt summarily dismiss Procrustian barriers
between modernism and post-modernism. By the
end of his career, Jarrell had begun, on occasion,
to write directly from experience; but he had not—
as ‘‘Gleaning’’ and ‘‘The Player Piano’’ prove—
abandoned the sweet uses of personae. The bril-
liance of Jarrell’s monologues, dialogues, and
scenes lies not in what they say, or do not say
about the poet himself; rather, their value resides
in that shock of recognition the reader experiences
upon discovering, in one ofJarrell’s speakers, not
only a portrait but a mirror.
Source:Charlotte H. Beck, ‘‘Randall Jarrell’s Modern-
ism: The Sweet Uses of Personae,’’ inSouth Atlantic
Review, Vol. 50, No. 2, May 1985, pp. 67–75.
W. S. Graham
In the following negative review ofLosses, Gra-
ham asserts thatLossesrelies too heavily on ‘‘inci-
dentals’’ and lacks an original voice.
Mr. Randall Jarrell’s name as a poet and critic
is one which in England as in this country carries
considerable prestige. One is at a loss therefore
to account for the shocking betrayal of poetic
responsibilities and, by implication, critical ones
exemplified by his third collection of poems. One’s
perplexity grows when one finds the critics com-
paring it variously to the work of Browning,
Auden and Tennyson, and included with the
‘‘great artificers’’ who ‘‘bring us into a world so
painfully clarified that it seems there is nothing
more to say.’’ Rarely have I witnessed such a
dividing gulf between reputation and achievement.
The situation raises fundamental questions con-
cerning poetic and critical standards.
Lossescomprises a collection of poems which
are mostly spun from what should be the involun-
tary incidentals of a poem, rather than the poems
being made first for the poetic action. Ideally, it is
the intensity of the poetic action which sets off and
elevates into significance these surrounding inci-
dental values—news, observation, narrative or fic-
tion, etc., or any ‘‘subject’’ separable from the
words and alive in its own right. Mr. Jarrell’s
notes at the end ofLosses indicate an almost
naive reliance upon such incidentals. For example
to explicate a slight, versified anecdote, ‘‘O My
Name It Is Sam Hall,’’ Mr. Jarrell obligingly
informs, ‘‘These men are three American prisoners
and one American M.P., at a B-29 training base in
Southern Arizona—Davis-Monthan Field, in
fact.’’ Or in explanation of a line of imagery in
‘‘Pilots, Man Your Planes,’’ ‘‘.. .But on the tubes
the raiders oscillate:Ontheradarset,thatis;the
view plate looks like a cathode-ray oscillograph.’’
The painstaking documentation of the poems
in the notes suggests that Mr. Jarrell believes
there is some helpful connection between the
reporting of poetic experience and its verifiability
in the ‘‘real’’ world.
Behind this dependence on objective documen-
tation there would seem to be a fear of any formal,
consciously ‘‘made’’ poetry. As an addition to his
intended verisimilitude Mr. Jarrell sprinkles his
poems full of little conversational phrases trailing
off to dots which, as a device, have a loosening
effect upon a poetic line which is, in the first place,
conceived at too low-grade a tension. He also
employs dashes liberally, although not consistently,
sometimes to do the work of commas, other times
of periods. The whole would seem to represent a
revolt against the ‘‘poetic,’’ an urge to deal with an
honest, thorny reality. While the surface of Mr.LOSSESCOMPRISES A COLLECTION OF
POEMS WHICH ARE MOSTLY SPUN FROM WHAT
SHOULD BE THE INVOLUNTARY INCIDENTALS OF A
POEM, RATHER THAN THE POEMS BEING MADE FIRST
FOR THE POETIC ACTION.’’Losses