Poetry’s Playground: The Culture of Contemporary American Children’s Poetry
Joseph T. Thomas, Jr.
Landscapes of Childhood Series
“Joseph Thomas’s Poetry’s Playground places children’s poetry in larger conversations—with canonical ‘adult’ poetry, with playground poetry—restoring it to its rightful place in American poetry. In a methodology that deftly mixes formalist criticism with rigorously contextual analysis, Thomas maps traditions of contemporary children’s poetry, while examining the institutional forces that shape literary canons. Close-reading obscenity-laden schoolyard chants alongside acknowledged masters like Robert Frost and Randall Jarrell, Thomas practices what he preaches—he wants to show us the joy in taking all poetry seriously.”
—Philip Nel, associate professor of English and director of the program in children’s literature, Kansas State University and author of Dr. Seuss: American Icon
“Joseph Thomas’s joyful new map of contemporary American children’s verse combines serious linguistic play with intellectual pleasure. Poetry’s Playground is an important, engagingly written contribution to the critical discussion of children’s poetry as poetry.”
—Lissa Paul, professor of education, Brock University, St. Catharines, Ontario, and an associate general editor of The Norton Anthology of Children’s Literature