I never thought of an anthology as a group of activists. I think the issue
was false advertizing: if a book says it's an anthology of current British
poetry and leaves out almost an entire major tendency in British verse it's
clearly dealing, to be charitable, at cross-purposes.

As to clubs, in the States there's been a long struggle to gain admission
to such by members of minorities (or even majorities--the old boys wouldn't
admit women, Blacks, people of Mediterranean descent, or Jews). Some of the
clubs responded by admitting a single member of an excluded group who colud
be counted on not to make trouble. That does sound like some anthologies.
But it didn't wash, and the fight continued, not because the peasants at
the gate liked the folks inside the fortress but because of the career
benefits of membership.

The flap at the Academy was primarily aesthetic and followed upon the
admission to membership of a mainstream poet (sorry, I don't remember her
name) who was honorable enough to very publicly withdraw because of the
Academy's refusal to recognize that a very large number of American poets
who don't fit the mold even exists. Robert Creeley was as a result made a
member and appointed to the board, hence Palmer's admission. It follows a
50 year struggle for recognition by those who haven't chosen to be
marginal, merely to write in their own manner. The marginalization was
imposed from the center, and the gates have hardly swung open easily. Let's
remember that even Allen Ginsberg, who consistently rewarded City Lights
with handsome profits and was one of a very few contemporary poets whose
books have been profitable, only managed to acquire a major publisher  and
the creature comforts that allowed in the very last years of his life. Even
the profit-motive hadn't been persuasive enough to publishers before that.

Aside from the prestige issue the Academy, by the way, administers a lot of
lucrative prizes.

Most poets portray themselves as poets, whether or not we or they connect
themselves to a group identity for the sake of ease of discussion. They
write in the hope that what they write will be found useful by an audience.
If an individual poet claims to be a prophet without honor one can question
whether he's not too blinded by vanity to see the lacks in his work. It's a
different issue when a set of major tendencies in poetry are kept outside
the gate. One could ask what the gatekeepers are afraid of.

A model of what could be done is Paris Leary and Robert Kelly's 1965 _A
Controversy of Poets_, which calls itself "an anthology of contemporary
American Poetry." Two poets, one very mainstream one very not, were each
given roughly half of 522 pages to fill with their own kind. The results
were presented alphabetically (chronology by date of biorth would hve
worked just as well--any structure that didn't carry a value judgement with
it would have), creating some surprising combinations: James Dickey comes
just before Ed Dorn, for instance. The reader is left to make his/her way
through without prejudice. And the book does do what it advertizes itself
as doing. The experiment has never, as far as I know, ben repeated.

At 12:10 PM 8/7/2000 EDT, [log in to unmask] wrote:
><< Groups form for several reasons. The three that apply here are I think 
>that 
> a. One finds both irrelevant and abhorrent what another crowd is doing
> 
> b. One joins with others to protect a position of power
> 
> c. One joins with others to challenge a position of power. >>
>
>If we move the argument back to anthologies, then one can say 
>I find most of what you (the anthologist) have selected irrelevant 
>if not abhorent, but you've left me and those of my poetic ilk 
>out, so I/we want in.
>Was it Groucho Marks who said "I wouldn't join a club that would 
>have me as a member." (which can be read a couple of ways)?
>If one is going to potray oneself as avantgarde/outre'/innovapoe,
>or whatever the term of the moment is, one can't act all hurt
>and dismayed when the gates of the g(u)ilt-edged pages don't 
>swing open easily.
>After a recent flap about its exclusivity (centered primarily
>around race & gender, but also in terms of aesthetics), the Academy 
>of American Poets named Michael Palmer to its fellowship. 
>But isn't that a Pyrrhic victory for avantgarde?
>Finnegan
>
>



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