Some basic issues about the identity and character of the list have
been raised.
I am impressed by the care with which cris and Trevor's Welcome
Message was written; I think it serves us well.  If people feel it's
time to review the purpose and ethos of the list, that process should
begin.  The list is now 11 years old.  It was founded by the late Ric
Caddel in 1994.  I joined when Ric was running it.  I reviewed his FOR
THE FALLEN and understood his poetry, like Ric himself, to participate
in many cultures, past, present, and across nations.  I associated him
with Peter Quartermain; from the beginning this list had an
internationalist character for me.

There are currently 231 members of British & Irish Poets.  I don't
know them all.
The bulk of addresses recognizable to me are from the UK and the USA,
with smaller numbers from Ireland, Australia, Tasmania, Japan, Russia,
France, and Iceland.  There are members with European, Asian, and
African names.  There are English poets living in England and English
poets living outside England; Irish poets living in Ireland and
outside Ireland; American poets, and poets of other nationalities, who
have lived in England or Ireland, or who have professional or personal
connections with poets in these countries; also poets and scholars of
a range of nationalities who have read in Ireland or England, have
publishers in Ireland or England, have participated in festivals
here/there, have written or edited books/anthologies relating to Irish
and/or English poetry.  Many of the members have institutional
affiliations, with universities, museums, libraries, and journals. 
There are many subscribers for whom English is a second language.
This is a diverse list, though not transparent.   It is international
in composition, with considerable fluidity between continents, as one
would expect at this point in time.  Many members, though not
unfortunately myself, are multi-lingual and many are engaged with
multiple cultures, or are between cultures.

In 1994, Ric Caddel initiated this list right at the time when such a
forum became possible.  It is an incredibly rich and various array of
people and I anticipate it will become even more so.  This is a
relatively new form of communication and we ourselves are setting the
precedents.

Rupert and I are the current listowners, as you know.  We became the
listowners by volunteering and being accepted by the previous
listowners.  I would like to see what contribution I can make, over
two or three years, and then invite another set of volunteers.  I hope
Rupert will stay on board.  Listowners don't actually own anything,
except maybe the responsibility of reading everything posted and
contributing, if we can.

Mairead



On 8/26/05, Peter Philpott <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Mairead
> 
> Returning to old posts will drive people away from this List in droves,
> but since I feel you have misrepresented and misread my earlier posting
> I will do this, and I am afraid at a little length. (Those not
> interested delete now!). I also need, I am afraid,  to query your
> interpretation of what this List is all about.
> 
> >I read Joe Sheerin's statement, as quoted by Rupert: "There is no such
> >thing as good writing and bad writing - there's writing," as very much
> >a practitioner's statement.  I look at the statement: it surprises, it
> >appeals to my aesthetics, it's very plain, it has a pleasing dialectic
> >structure, it even employs repetition.  It's a little bit Zen and it's
> a little bit jazz.  I'm a writer.  For me, the statement is pragmatic,
> useful.
> 
> I'm with you & Rupert there.
> 
> I'm sort of disgusted to see suggestions coming up on the list like
> "members of this list … genuinely bothered by irony and humour … need
> a much greater and deeper involvement in British and Irish poetry
> until they manage to get the jokes" (Peter).  Our discussion community
> is not based in Sheffield or the West Midlands or any part of England;
> it is comprised of the 231 members of this list, who come from many
> cultures and live in many different locations throughout the world.
> 
> Yes this is a widely based discussion group. It is nothing specifically
> to do with "England" (muted cheers and hissing in the background for the
> Land of the Chicken Tikka Masala).  I took vast care in my post to use
> phrasing to cover the poetries written centred on these here islands. I
> did this because I understood, in the email welcoming me to the List
> from one of the then List-Owners, that this was "a discussion & news
> list for practitioners and readers of current poetry and poetics, with
> emphasis on recent postmodern and innovative poetries in Britain and
> Ireland." It is on this basis that I made my earlier post and am making
> this one.
> 
> If this is no longer the nature of the List, please inform me, and I
> will adopt a different attitude towards its discussions.
> 
> If it still be the nature of this List, then it is a List, as I wrote
> earlier, "centred on the poetry written/being written in the Great Brown
> Tea Drinking Archipelago". "Centred on" - not confined to, but with some
> kind of focus on eg,  the sort of writing Five Seasons Press publishes
> and wishes to publish. The conditions under which these poetries are
> published cannot but be relevant to discussion on this list - even to
> activities taking place in Sheffield, or Hereford. These are not just
> petty little English (boo! hiss!)
> 
> local or national issues
> 
> but issues I took to be absolutely central to this List. I am more than
> surprised at your statements about this.
> 
> I would also assert, and did assert in the earlier post, that this
> emphasis on "recent postmodern and innovative poetries in Britain and
> Ireland" implies an  openness to the linguistic conventions of Britain
> and Ireland, one of which is a frequent use of irony and humour. I
> cannot but see that someone who is unable to pick up on this frequent
> Irish and British use of language will have problems coping with both
> the poetries and the discourses around these poetries in Ireland and
> Britain.
> 
> I think, on the basis I am working from, that it would be shameful for
> this List to adopt a policy of restricting linguistic devices and
> references to those that All Contributors can respond to. It would mean
> a diminution and falsification of the discourse surrounding British and
> Irish Poetry. If there is offence at specific examples of irony or
> humour - that is a quite specific matter that can be raised and dealt
> with. If there are List members who are genuinely feeling excluded by
> typically British and Irish irony and humour - I strongly feel that is
> their problem. This isn't chauvinism, it is fundamental to the nature,
> as I assume it is, of this List and its concerns.
> 
>   It's chauvinist to imply that if a member doesn't live
> in England, then he or she has nothing valuable to contribute.
> 
> You're absolutely right there, Mairead. Who is the rat who has implied
> such things? I have stated that I think someone unresponsive to Irish
> and British humour and irony may have problems responding to Irish and
> British poetry, and might better seek some other poetry. That's advice
> people are free to take or not. I am extremely offended that you have
> distorted what I wrote. I do not think that is acceptable behaviour from
> a List Owner.
> 
> Peter
> and Geraldine both object to Rupert's opinions: Rupert lives in
> England but even his views cannot be accommodated:
> 
> "I wish Rupert a long and successful career in the Arts Council" (Peter)
> 
> 
> I think it's shameful to talk to, or about, Rupert in this way.  West
> Midlands Arts is the enemy.  Arts Council England is the enemy.  Hey
> maybe Rupert is the enemy.  I don't think so.  Exclusivity as Peter
> and Geraldine present it here
> is, in my view, more debilitating.
> 
> Like Geraldine I was absolutely appalled at the throwaway line with
> which Rupert ended a post:
> 
> "Wow! Change! Poets, eat your hearts out!"
> 
> I take that as an insult - those not engaged in what Rupert's original
> post presented as a proletcult Worker's Poetry Group (with none of that
> fancy elitist postmodern and innovative stuff, but good accessible
> rhyme) are being left behind by Progress and Change.  I take this as
> excluding me - that's what "eat your hearts out" means, isn't it? And
> this from a List Owner!
> 
> So I asked a question I feel like asking again, as support for political
> policies with regard to support for poetry implies the answer "yes" to
> it: "Is the value of our activity within the social institutions of
> British and Irish poetry to be determined by the class basis and
> ethnicities etc of our audiences?" Acceptance of this (implied by his
> enthusiasm for Socially Progressive Workers Poetry) is agreement with
> Arts Council funding priorities based, as they are, on non-artistic
> considerations.
> 
> I reflected this back at Rupert. If you, or anyone else, takes "a long
> and successful career in the Arts Council" as a shameful insult - I am
> utterly amused. I can easily accommodate to Rupert's views - by mocking
> them, not very fiercely. (His later posts on his group make the group
> sound, by the way a fascinating activity - that first post was very
> ill-advised and presented it in a light that misrepresented it. It was
> that post, and especially that jeer at other poets with which it ended I
> was responding to.
> 
> I do not advocate or present exclusivity. I  advocate humour, irony,
> poetic rather than social values and this being a List which covers a
> multitude of poetic topics and voices but cannot exclude discussion of
> issues affecting British and Irish poetry. I welcome the presence on
> this list of eg Susan Schultz, Alison Croggon and Anny Ballardini,  to
> name some nonresident in Ireland or Britain, and value their
> contributions. I advocate their work on my website. I am being
> misrepresented again.
> 
> This post is getting too long - but simply, Mairead, take it that if you
> or others have felt aggrieved by my post - I feel aggrieved also by, and
> this is not good, the List-Owners' postings.
> 
> I have also based my postings on my perception on what I believed was
> the nature of the List. If my perception is incorrect and the List has
> changed since I joined, fine. I will treat it accordingly. Please make
> this explicit though if this is the case.
> 
> And for gawd's sake come back, Geraldine! Your country needs you!
> 
> Best wishes
> 
> Peter Philpott
>