I see your point Jamie. As I just replied to Tony, by “widely read” I mean among the small number of poetry enthusiasts—probably about 3,0000 worldwide.
By “understandable” I mean that there are no lexical peculiarities etc. And Hill is understandable in that way.
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Jamie McKendrick wrote:
David, as Tony’s question shows, this definition offered in the interests of clarity quickly becomes problematic.
The first point of ‘widely read’ would only account for about three or four contemporary poets, and then maybe another ten or so lagging some way behind. Maybe you could redefine that as ‘probably just slightly more widely read’ but even then I’m not sure. Three or four poets normally thought of as avant-garde probably outsell most of the other category, J.H. Prynne and Denise Riley to start with.
Then your second idea of ‘easily understandable’ again becomes quickly problematic as the example of Hill and a number of others would show. Poetry just isn’t an easily understandable art - it takes effort, and that goes for seemingly straightforward poets too.
Your third idea has a bit more mileage though it would be easy to find counter examples from both sides.
The vagueness would be ok, we could live with it fine, if the terms weren’t continually being weaponised.
Jamie
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