SOURCE: Graham, W. S. Review of Losses, by Randall Jarrell. Poetry 72, no. 6 (September 1948): 302-07.

In the following review of Losses, Graham finds the poems of Jarrell's third collection banal, incidental, vague, and disappointing.

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.¹ One's perplexity grows when one finds the critics comparing 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 concerning poetic and critical standards.

Losses comprises...