I was about to make just the point you make below, Jamie.
Also, Philip's relation to each of the various groups was quite different --
he was a contemporary of Plath and Hughes at Cambridge, a young lecturer at
Belfast, and nearer in age to Heaney and the others than he was to the
members of the first Glasgow group. At least two members of the second
Glasgow group, Anne Stevenson and Alasdair Gray (and both of those, for
different reasons, might be uncomfortable about being seen as part of the or
a "group") were pretty well established as writers when they encountered
Philip.
So yes, the activity around Philip was the promotion of the act of
*writing* -- he facilitated, in that sense, the production of
_Correspondences_ and _Rock and Water_. Whatever hand he had in getting
them published would be a different matter.
Indeed, his attempts to promote David Black and Francis Berry -- critically
in the first case, editorially in the second -- weren't markedly successful.
Both are still thoroughly underrated. Or generally ignored, might be
another way of putting it.
As much as anything else, he had the luck to be in the right place at the
right time, but once there had an ability to recognise the significant
writers around and bring them together. He was able to identify talent, and
foster it. No mean achievement.
Robin
-----Original Message-----
From: Jamie Mckendrick
Sent: Thursday, December 19, 2013 4:03 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: In fairness
I may have this all wrong but Hobsbaum wasn't, I thought, a promoter at all
but rather a convener. I don't think he wielded that kind of influence in
publishing etc, which is why the whole centrality given to him has always
struck me as bizarre. I defer to Robin on this.
J
Sent using BlackBerry® from Orange
-----Original Message-----
From: Peter Riley <[log in to unmask]>
Sender: British & Irish poets <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2013 14:42:03
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Reply-To: British & Irish poets <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: In fairness
I don't feel able to contribute further until I've looked at some of
Hobsbaum's criticism. I notice there is a book called "Tradition and
Experiment in British Poetry". Apart from all the promoting, I'd be
very interested to know which poetry he specifically rejected.
Jamie is right about our taste. Of all those poets Hobsbawm (both
spelling seem to be accepted) is said to have promoted Hughes and
Plath seem to me to stand out as the real thing, with all attached
problems. But I actually don't much like the idea of a kind of
professional "poet promoter" either. There's been endless trouble with
such roles in radical quarters too.
Pr
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