Miss Moore’s “The Pangolin”

In honor of Jarrell’s intense regard for Miss Marianne Moore, here is the ending of her poem”The Pangolin” (which begins, so wonderfully, “Another armored animal…”) -
Not afraid of anything is he,
and then goes cowering forth, tread paced to meet an obstacle
at every step.  Consistent with the
formula – warm blood, no gills, two pairs of hands [...]

Jarrell’s “Reflections on Wallace Stevens”

Jarrell is unapologetic in both his praise and his criticism of Wallace Stevens.  Praise for the early work.  Criticism for the turn much of Steven’s later work takes towards the abstract.
A few of his critiques seemed like generally worthwhile statements to bring into a creative writing class.  (For example, useful when trying to explain to [...]

From “The Obscurity of the Poet”

A few lines from Randall Jarrell:
“Anyone who has spent much time finding out what people do when they read a poem, what poems actually mean for them, will have discovered that a surprising part of the difficulty they have comes from their almost systematic unreceptiveness, their queer unwillingness to pay attention…. You need to read [...]