Poetry’s Playground: The Culture of Contemporary American Children’s Poetry

Joseph T. Thomas, Jr.

Landscapes of Childhood Series

• Acknowledgments
• Introduction

1. Public Poetry and Politics: Robert Frost and the Emerging Canon of Mid-Century American Children’s Poetry

2. “Levels and Opposites” in Randall Jarrell’s The Bat Poet

3. Child Poets and the Poetry of the Playground

4. Street Cries: Mother Goose, Urchin Poetry, and Contemporary U.S. Children’s Poetry

5. A Defense of Visual Poetry for Children

Coda: Toward a Canon of U.S. Children’s Poetry

• Appendix A: Most Commonly Anthologized Poets
• Appendix B: Most Commonly Anthologized Poets Grouped by Nationality
• Appendix C: Most Commonly Anthologized U.S. Poets and the Poems Representing Them: A Descriptive Canon
• Appendix D: Award-Winning Books of Contemporary U.S. Poetry

• Notes
• Works Cited
• Index