The children’s poetry of Juan Kruz Igerabide (1992-2005): thematic, metrical and stylistic analysis of the poems

Abstract

There is an enormous lack of information on children’s poetry. While there are numerous studies on narrative, children’s poetry presents a clear void in the field of criticism and research, and even more so in Basque literature. In this context, this article analyses the characteristics of the children’s poetry of Juan Kruz Igerabide (Aduna, 1956), the main promoter of children’s poetry, through the literary analysis of his poems. A comparative analysis has also been carried out to examine whether the children’s poetry published by Juan Kruz Igerabide falls within the framework of Spanish children’s poetry. The results of the analysis of Igerabide’s poems show a strong tendency towards haiku, with the prevailing themes of nature, brevity, poetic images and stylistic figures affecting semantics. The comparison of Spanish lyric poetry with the children’s poetry of Juan Kruz Igerabide reveals that, although it differs in some aspects, the characteristics of Spanish children’s poetry are very similar to those of Igerabide’s children’s poetry detailed in this study.