This reads rather like a list that's done the rounds already, by someone
with a job title like Reading Manager at the Poetry Society (of London that
is). Michael Donaghy was a very personable and musical chap: I met him twice
over several pints after readings and enjoyed his company thoroughly, and he
died sadly early, but he was never the aithor of the 'best poetry book' in ,
in , in or out of what anyhow? and I imagine he would have cringed at the
hype.
While despite the strenous attemps at feminist revision and inflation of
suitable reputations
the commendable Christina Rossetti wasn't even the best poet of her
generation, let alone number two in an all-time hit parade.
As a guide to current taste among a certain type of readership for poetry in
Britain this list is possibly woefully accurate: if it wasn't for both the
expulsion of social reality in current vocabulary and too a certain strange
combination of fuzziness and clumsiness in inherited traditional terminology
I might just be tempted to characterize it as 'middle-class taste'.
best
dave
On 20 April 2010 15:46, Douglas Barbour <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> The Independent's choice of Ten best Poetry Books:
>
>
> http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/the-ten-best-poetry-books-1671548.html?action=Popup&ino=1
>
> including a few anthologies, & mostly poets I dont know, or dont care that
> much about (& the quotes dont make me want to, but).
>
> I'd be interested in any British members' comments....
>
> Doug
> Douglas Barbour
> [log in to unmask]
>
> http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/
>
> Latest books:
> Continuations (with Sheila E Murphy)
> http://www.uap.ualberta.ca/UAP.asp?LID=41&bookID=664
> Wednesdays'
>
> http://abovegroundpress.blogspot.com/2008/03/new-from-aboveground-press_10.html
>
> The secret
>
> I was immediately set upon by two or three
> critics, who hurled sophistries and
> maledictions at me that were astonishing
> in their dimness.
>
> Jorge Luis Borges
>
--
David Bircumshaw
"A window./Big enough to hold screams/
You say are poems" - DMeltzer
Website and A Chide's Alphabet
http://www.staplednapkin.org.uk
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