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could I butt in and respond to this question directed at Helen? could i ask you if, these days, with multi channel pay tv, the internet, etc., if not the role of poetry in this area, ie capturing images, scenes or panoramas, has been somewhat diminished. no never - surely not. So much of the imagery we are offered through tv, advertising and even the might internet panacea to all cultural ills, is............ well I am tempted to say debased, though I am sure members of the list will jump if I use such emotive vocabulary. So I try to clarify it moves out of a commercial motivation. Has been created to move/be beautiful/funny/appealing in order to shift product. So it _does_ move/be beautiful/funny/appealing (I wouldn't want to claim it wasn't.......) but the vast bulk of it reaching for the _easiest_ route to response, often reliant on the already worn out stereotypes around which the culture circles, and in tune with a deep ideology (don't ask me to define it! - global/patriarchal/homophobic/imperialist/capitalist would be a beginning) that is actually working to destroy the fragile life of human beings on the planet and because of this there is a terrible aching gap right in the core functioning of the culture - where individual people function and experience their lives (I am talking about England here I guess, since I don't know about Australia which has been the subject of much of this discussion) and we desperately need what? balm nourishment challenge deep thought dreams intense driven packed extreme mad language images which to me is poetry There are poets here who do this in many different ways - all of them pretty comprehensively ignored by the mainstream media, but loved and cherished in smaller and more secret ways. Some more transparent in their concerns (Gillian Clarke, Alison Brackenberry..... and others making a deeper challenge in the way they operate in language - Maggie O'Sullivan, Roy Fisher). Many of them show a tremendous engagement with 'landscape' if that term is read as meaning the environment they experience (vis: 'Handsworth Liberties') I don't know how it would be possible not to - maybe because landscape is where memory resides? good sex or drugs are another terrain altogether! I am sure Helen has her own stuff to say - but I found myself saying 'NO' outloud when I read your posting it is a response anyhow Liz