One of our universities recently made a survey of the reading habits of the American public; it decided that forty-eight percent of all Americans read, during a year, no book at all. I picture to myself that reader — that non-reader, rather; one man out of every two — and I reflect, with shame: "Our poems are too hard for him." But so, too, are Treasure Island, Peter Rabbit, pornographic novels — any book whatsoever.


"The Obscurity of the Poet," Harvard University lecture (15 August 1950), published in Poetry and the Age (1953)

Randall Jarrell Quotes

One of our universities recently made a survey of the reading habits of the American public; it decided that forty-eight percent of all Americans...

One of our universities recently made a survey of the reading habits of the American public; it decided that forty-eight percent of all Americans...

One of our universities recently made a survey of the reading habits of the American public; it decided that forty-eight percent of all Americans...

One of our universities recently made a survey of the reading habits of the American public; it decided that forty-eight percent of all Americans...