This rings a good many bells, Jon . . . there did seem to be
a sudden rash of poems about blackberry picking and
grandparents from the early 80s onwards. I wrote one of
these awaful things myself -- 'My Father's Coat' (which
coincidentally appeared in Chapman). Insipid stuff.
Used to call them Lawn Poems, if I remember. A kind of
modern pastoralism, an excessive treasuring of surface detail
with a feeble moral embedded somewhere (if you were really
lucky . . . .)
Like Alison I'm also curious to know how far this suburbanite
strand is specific to women writers -- are there guys also?
What about the likes of Hugo Williams? Is it just too many
women reading too much Seamus Heaney?? The male writers
from the early 80s onward I seem to remember not so much
for their suburban trifles but for their interminable ironic narratives --
rather heartless fare. Verbal party-pieces. More along the lines
of your 'City Kids' in fact.
Anyway -- was there a clear gender divide between these two
groups, in your opinion?
I guess to return the ball into the other court, I received a MS
the other day from a friend of mine in the States, a first volume
due out next year. There was a marked difference in tone from
your average UK fare -- virtually no lyric sensibility at all . . . .
rather flat, very prosey, very earnest. I'm wondering what
camps the younger US writers may be divided into . . . .
Andy
P.S. Gerry Cambridge -- fine chap with a fine beard.
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