Well, "Orpheus" aka Clifford Duffy has had a lot of stick here for his
support of Hughes and Heaney. But let's not forget one of his original
questions: "Is there an Irish or British "movement"  like the language
poets?" Can I take the opportunity to link the two themes here - I'll be as
brief as I can.

It's not a question of whether Hughes (for instance) is a "bad" poet or
not. Clearly, he is competent, and successful at what he does. Clearly too,
the over-hyping of poets like him and Heaney, and the sentimental "Great
Poet" eulogising gets up the collective nose of many on this list, myself
included. This Reader's Digest approach to literature does no service to
anyone, and besides, there are many poets around who are of far greater
interest to me yet who get no recognition outside the small gatherings of
which the British-poets list is an example.

When I was a postgraduate teaching student in the early 70s I was
recommended Hughes' book _Poetry in the Making_ as a teaching aid for
children. His first chapter is called "Capturing animals". He quotes his
own poem "The Thought-Fox" (which you'll find in many collections - I won't
take up space with it here). His commentary concludes: "...So, you see, in
some ways my fox is better than an ordinary fox. It will live forever, it
will never suffer from hunger or hounds. I have it with me wherever I go.
And I made it. And all through imagining it clearly enough and finding the
living words."

There is an entire poetics encapsulated here, and it is one that I
ultimately came to reject. For it seems to me that vivid description is not
in fact the most important component of poetry, although it may be a mark
of good journalism or reportage. The poem does not primarily exist to
immortalise experience by metaphorising it; to be a means of translating
the world out there into the "best possible words"; to "capture animals";
or to render (Pope) "what oft was thought but ne'er so well expressed". And
curiously, it was my reading of people like Tzara, whom Orpheus/Clifford
bizarrely quotes, as well as Lorca, Rilke, Eluard, Ashbery, which convinced
me to reject that paradigm of poetry (the dominant paradigm in this
country) and to search for one based in the imaginative play of language.
(Incidentally, Clifford, I recommend you look up the work of a neglected
English poet, Lee Harwood, who translated Tzara.)

My exploration of such poetics led me to investigate Tom Raworth, Allen
Fisher, JH Prynne, Bob Cobbing and many others who came out of what the
late Prof Eric Mottram termed the "British Poetry Revival" beginning around
1960. It led me to find affinities with other poetries elsewhere, including
that of the so-called "language poets" in the USA.

Whether any of these mentioned will ever win public accolades as "Great
Poets" is a question of deep irrelevance. If "great" means anything to me,
it means "perception-changing". As in the following (imaginary) exchange:
"I see so-and-so was reading at CCCP the other week. Was she any good?"
"Yeah, she was great."

Ken


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