Jamie, I think you are right in saying ‘What we’re calling the avant-garde does seem to have a far higher profile with regard to critical articles, research etc. so perhaps it’s there that the exclusion for some is more keenly felt.’ I think this aspect is a good measuring tool to gauge things with. Mainstream poetry doesn’t seem to have an equivalent set of yardsticks—or if it does it is never seen as such. 

So because of this it would be very easy for an “outsider avantgarde” poet, who had no links to academia, no academic contacts or academically affiliated peer-group network to be noticed by academia. And should he/she try to “break-in” to all of this he/she would probably be seen as a “gatecrasher” who hasn’t “properly gone through the system (avantgarde postgraduate writing courses, going to avantgarde academic conferences, reading their poems at “sanctioned” avantgarde poetry readings and informal avantgarde poetry reading get-togethers etc). He/she would stand no chance of any a consideration. 

And as Robert alluded to earlier, if the said poet was also “the wrong age”—over 40, he/she may as well pack-up and go home. It is probably no coincidence that most (if not all) newly recognised avantgarde poets are young, as it is predominantly the young who go through the higher education system.

So all of this has a lot to do with class, age and which avantgarde academic peer group network you are part of. I can’t put it all down, as Peter alluded to, to just one or two university tutors giving their favourite students a helping hand. That sort of thing does go on, but isn’t that significant to this wider problem.



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Jamie McKendrick wrote:

David, the quote you give sums up the issue well. Though I’ve trespassed onto the conversation, I’m sure others here know more than I do, as I’m situated on the periphery of the academy, and I’m not particularly signed up to any camp. 
   Michael and Tim’s point about Elizabeth Bletsoe may well be relevant, but there are quite a number of poets we could all think of that may have been overlooked for other reasons than the lack of academic endorsement.
   So the question doesn’t have to be skeptical, but I too was wondering how much difference being in some kind of academic circle actually makes for individual poets, how it helps them find an audience. If I hear some poet praised by what I consider a trustworthy source I’d be disposed to look at the work. This process was traditionally done by reviewing, but that seems an activity in decline. What we’re calling the avant-garde does seem to have a far higher profile with regard to critical articles, research etc. so perhaps it’s there that the exclusion for some is more keenly felt.
Jamie