Much of his poetic writing predates
Ubu Roi, though the poetry collected in
Alfred Jarry: Œuvres Poétiques Complétes (Alfred Jarry: Complete Poetic Works, 1945) was written throughout his career. Much of this work is in the form of prose poems and poetry incorporated in dramatic texts. Overshadowed by
Ubu Roi, Jarry's poetry has not received universal attention from critics, translators, and anthologists; for example, Roger Shattuck and Simon Watson-Taylor's
Selected Works: Alfred Jarry (1965) includes only five poems. Indeed, though Jarry's poems are included in anthologies of French poetry of the period, his importance as a poet is largely viewed in terms of his influence on major poets who followed. And while this influence is widely acknowledged, Jarry's place relative to the Symbolist and Surrealist movements in poetry is a matter of some debate, and the degree to which critics find Jarry's work to be of importance to his successors varies. In the third edition of his
Anthology of Modern French Poetry: From Baudelaire to the Present Day (1967), C. A. Hackett calls Jarry "a minor, marginal figure whom the Surrealists have placed at the summit of their hierarchy of predecessors"; as depicted by Jacques-Henri Lévesque in his 1951 monograph, by contrast, Jarry is a more direct participant in the Symbolist movement; and André Frédérique, in his preface to Jarry's
Œuvres Poétiques Complétes, calls him "avant tout un poéte" (above all a poet).
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