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My reason in posting the review of the Conductors of Chaos anthology was simply to stimulate something other than a discussion on fox-hunting, a subject upon which, to be honest, I have no marked feelings whatsoever. I can't say much about my own viewpoint on the anthology as I no longer have a copy in my possession however I do regard it as rather unfortunate that the book left only a weak impression in my memory. Although there were certainly good poets and poems within it, sadly, like almost every anthology of British poetry I've seen since the original version of the Lucie-Smith book of 1970, it had a somewhat one-voiced monotone effect. Despite some star turns. Good anthologies, like good magazines, should embody a multiplicity of voices, a coming together of disparate angles, as did, say, famously, the Ford Madox Ford productions of the Edwardian era. A really representative anthology of recent British poetry would be a superb beastie, just as a magazine that was genuinely open to stylisitic variation and plurality would. But neither is nor, I fear, likely to be. MacDiarmid has something on the lines of 'disinteredness, our profoundest word yet'. It that quality, disinteredness, that the poetic culture today seems largely to have forsook. david bircumshaw ----- Original Message ----- From: Douglas Barbour <[log in to unmask]> To: <[log in to unmask]> Sent: Tuesday, December 12, 2000 2:26 PM Subject: Re: chaos > Thanks Malcolm > > for taking the time to say at length what others simply implied, & for > pointing out the necessary... > > Douglas Barbour > Department of English > University of Alberta > Edmonton Alberta Canada T6G 2E5 > (h) [780] 436 3320 (b) [780] 492 0521 > http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/dbhome.htm > > Although they are > > Only breath, words > which I command > are immortal > > Sappho (Mary Barnard trans)