In message <v01530502b510d15f50bf@[194.112.54.126]>, Peter Riley
<[log in to unmask]> writes
> Most of the badly
>ignored dead poets I can think of are highly skilled and imaginative
>writers of a distinctly traditional flavour, like Housman.
There's always a question of where ignored & by whom. In Housman's case
not by poetry-buyers, I've found: A Shropshire Lad was easily the best-
selling book at The Poetry Bookshop 1981-96. But AEH isn't much
mentioned on any side of the great debates; he just doesn't seem to
figure in any critical overview at all. The exception, not critical but
affectionate, is his appearance in late poems by W.S.Graham. As far as
all those buyers are concerned it's perhaps a case of what David Kennedy
calls the non-aesthetic in poetry in that interesting pamphlet of his
_Smoking, Eating and Speaking with the Dead_; but this isn't to deny the
highly aesthetic qualities of the poetry.
AH
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