This might be of some passing relevance to this discussion on The Liverpool Poets.
An article (‘Voices in Denial: Poetry and Post-Culture’) by A. C. Evans I published several years ago addresses the notion of a “popular poetry”. He seems to view the 1960s poetry “revolution” as a missed opportunity in some sense.
He writes: ‘This essay aims to argue two points: first, that British poetry during the 1960s missed an opportunity, suggested to it by other art forms, to positively engage with mass popular culture and second, that the denial of the “authorial voice” in poetry, due to the influence of various Postmodernist literary theories, should be challenged and rejected.’
Here it is:
http://www.argotistonline.co.uk/Evans%20essay.htm
Subject: Re: The Liverpool Poets
From: Peter Riley <[log in to unmask]>
Reply-To: British & Irish poets <[log in to unmask]>
Date:Tue, 16 Jan 2018 13:44:07 +0000
My memory is that in the 1960s a strong connection was made between certain poets and rock music. Readings, which were a new thing, were referred to as “gigs”. Poets went on tours. Large crowds turned up for poets they’d never heard of. I connect this particularly with Barry MacSweeney, though he wasn’t the only one. The publicity and promotion for his The Boy from the Green Cabaret Tells of his Mother (1968) was very much along these lines. “Cambridge” was worried that this kind of thing would debase MacSweeney’s writing, as he went for striking and obvious gestures which got good audience reaction. Look at the packaging of MacSweeney’s Just 22 - and don’t mind dying (1973) (“the official biography of Jim Morrison, rock idol”) and the blurb by John James And so on.
PR
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