I just wrote this in the pub for my `Waffle' column in Lynx
and thought I would post it...... I have to add a section on
recent pamphlets and ....


Ric Caddel and Peter Quartermain have provided a much-needed anthology
[Other: British and Irish Poetry since 1970, 1999, Wesleyan University
Press] of the innovative poets of Britain and Ireland. It is a
beautifully-produced book of 280 pages. Essential reading.<P>

But the book reminds me that the avantgarde is as mediocre as the
mainstream. Only a few gleams of light. On a first reading the poetry
that seemed worth rereading was that of John Agard, Fred D'Aguiar and
Barry MacSweeney's three `Pearl' poems. Douglas Oliver and Peter Riley
presented a solid ordinariness. I would pick out Tom Leonard's `The Evidence'
as the best poem.<P>

I wondered about the selection. I have always thought Barry MacSweeney
to write best when he is talking about Sparty Lea. None of that here.
And I used to follow Kelvin Corcoran. Nothing here to remind me why.<P>

But, all in all, it is a book to buy and is probably read best in
conjunction with Maggie O'Sullivan's anthology of innovative women
poets [Out of Everywhere, 1996, Reality Street Editions]. Women poets
(and Irish) are not too well represented in `Other'.<P>

Keith Tuma has written a fabulous critical work [Fishing by Obstinate
Isles, 1998, Northwestern University Press] to try and encourage Americans
that there are things going on in contemporary British poetry that are
worth bothering about. He has an enormous detailed knowledge to back him
up in his 298 pages.<P>

I found the first 140-page half of the book offputting regarding British
poetry, against his intention, because of his continual interest in The
Movement and Philip Larkin. Then he didn't help himself bu a concentration
on the unknown (to me) Joseph Gordon Macleod.<P>

But in the second half of the book he becomes much more enticing with
chapters on Mina Loy, Basil Bunting's `Briggflats', Alternative British
POets (Peter Riley, Allen Fisher, Geraldine Monk, Tom Raworth and Roy
Fisher), Edward Kamau Brathwaite's `X/Self'. But I find it difficult
to take Mina Loy seriously as an important poet. What delighted me was
to see `X/Self' treated on the same level as `Briggflats'. For another
poem of similar quality one would have to look to Geoffrey Hill's `Mercian
Hymns'. And that is a toy by comparison.<P>

But the impression I get from the first half of `Fishing by Obstinate
Isles' is of a complete confidence in the superiority of American poetry.
I recall that a few months ago I read James Tate's edition of `The
Best American Poems of 1997' (1997, Scribner) and could hardly find a
poem worth spending a moment on. But then I have since read James Tate's
`Selected Poems' (1997, Carcanet) and find that he can hardly write a
poem himself, so it is no wonder. Fred Beake tells me that James Tate is
a poet you have to listen to rather than read on the page.<P>

`X/Self', the third book in Brathwaite's second trilogy,is a tremendous work.
It is much superior to `Sun Poem' and `Mother Poem', the preceding books.
I have not been able to get hold of his first trilogy `The Arrivants'.
I see in it what is missing from most of `Other'. An organic feel for
language. Very few of the poets in `Other' have that and some in only a
pedestrian way. Something akin to the poetry Keith Tuma quotes in his book
(both mainstream and innovative). I just can't understand why people don't
respond to language. Keith Tuma and I differ here. His instinct is to
look first at the meaning whereas I dive into the mesh of words that is
the language of the poem. It may be years before I skulk out the meaning
of a poem I like (if ever, thinking of Geoffrey Hill's `Funeral Music').
In my opinion the only two poets dealt with in Keith Tuma's book who
have that quality of language are Bunting and Brathwaite, but Keith seems
not to notice,<P>

I haven't discussed Basil Bunting, whose `Briggflats' speaks for itself,
preferring to emphasise the lesser-known Edward Kamau Brathwaite. There
are people who string words together into poems and then there are the
very select few who can write poetic language. Bunting and Brathwaite
have demonstrated the gift on marvellous occasion.<P>

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