I think that Davids Bromige and Bircumshaw describe a recognisable landscape
but overstate their points so as to make them disputable.
Since we are obviously forced to keep on using the terms 'mainstream' and
'avantgarde' here some random thoughts.
(1) It is not only poets in the 'mainstream' who have overblown reputations.
It is not only the 'mainstream' that constantly recycles and repackages the
same small group of names.
(2) The comment about Auden is a bit wide of the mark. He has been a
significant influence on a number of younger 'mainstream' poets who came to
prominence in the 1980s and 1990s and clearly do not write a safe, largely
Movement derived poetry of a single unified voice. Sean O'Brien, for
example, and Glyn Maxwell - well, his first two books at any rate.
(3) Please fit the following poets into either 'mainstream' or 'avantgarde':
Bill Herbert, Maggie Hannan, John Ash, John Welch, Peter Reading, John
Hartley Williams. The work of all these reveals the uselessness of the two
categories.
(4) I've thought long and hard before saying this: the introductions to
Other and to the Bloodaxe New Poetry which I co-edited are making the same
arguments - localness, fragmentation, plurivocity - about different
poetries. Again I think this reveals the uselessness of the two categories
and the bankruptcy of the vocabulary we habitually use to discuss poetry.
(5) Lawrence Upton posted a useful article - I forget where - about the
uselessness of the word 'experimental'. This should focus us all on finding
better terminology/ies. I suggest that we start some threads on
british-poets similar to those on poetryetc2 e.g. postings about poetics,
form etc.
(7) The 'exclusion' that David Bircumshaw talks about is often self-made and
self-perpetuating.
But enough: I've got to get to the market early to get the best fish.
Cheers
David
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