>I think the notion of an anthology with only five people & speculating
>about
> who they might be runs counter to the spirit of the list. It is
> exclusionary
> & cliquish.
>
> jd
I think Joe has put his finger on it, in that my original off-hand comment
was *both exclusionary and cliquist.
For which, no apologies.
(Though I'm just a little surpised to see the amount of comment it has
generated. Not, however, with anyone suggesting an alternative list. Am I
the only claque to risk his neck in this town?)
But leaving aside personal preference (which obviously always plays a part
in any compiling of antholgies, whether real or ideal) three of the five
names I originally listed were poets whose work has been intimately involved
with, and developed out of, the Snapshot project.
That's one criterion ...
There are others, who fulfil that criterion, that I didn't list ...
There are 79 ways of skinning a cat, and 35 at least that I didn't mention.
Sharon Brogan made the powerful and obvious point that perhaps one should be
choosing poems, not poets.
But ...
This *already begs several questions ...
Hal Johnson's sonnets get distributed to several lists, and part of the
nature of Hal's imaginative project lies not in any single poem but in the
nature of the project itself.
Ditto in spades with Patrick's poems.
The problem with putting together an anthology of, say, early 19thC poems
with a liberal leaning, wouldn't be the agonising over whether or not to
include Leigh Hunt, or Keats (apart from the Edinburgh Review, there'd be no
argument there) but who'd at the time notice if the anthology left out
Blake?
{Here's my petc Exclusionary Cliquist 5 Names Early 19thC
Situationist list ...
Blake
Coleridge
Keats
Byron
Anon ...
If I were applying Sharon's single-poem criterion, I'd include
Shelly's "The Mask of Anarchy," otherwise not.}
It's easier with retrospect, obviously, but there *are no easy choices.
Just glad I'm not the one whose nose is on the line.
<g>
Robin
|