Description: The third installment of our exclusive The Voice of the Poet series, comprised of rare archival recordings -- some never before released -- featuring Randall Jarrell; an anthology of women poets: H.D., Edna St. Vincent Millay, Marianne Moore and Gertrude Stein; as well as current recordings by contemporary poet John Ashbery. Each audio production is accompanied by a book containing the text of the poems and a commentary by J.D. McClatchy.

Randall Jarrell (1914-1965) was called by Robert Lowell "the most heartbreaking poet of his generation". Jarrell was born in Nashville, Tennessee, and grew up in California. Some of his best poems are about World War II; they portray war less as the destruction of others than as a brutilization of the self. Drawn to Germanic folklore and fairytales, to the psychology of dreams and repression, Jarrell explored in his poems the "unknown, unwanted life", the empty corridors in all our lives. The child, the aging woman, and the victim were favorite characters of his tender and subtle dramatic monologues. Though sometimes tinged with sentimentality, his poems are distinguished by their compassion and intelligence. He was given the National Book Award in 1961.

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