Roger etc,
Yes, summer is a bad time for Brit-Po, but so it seems is the rest of the year. The list has gone way way downhill. People like me are as much to blame as anyone, I know. I used to post regularly and enthusiastically but for various reasons that stopped. The nature of the list changed, it lost its focus. It became a waste of effort to post anything beyond the shortest comment or notice - serious discussion of the issues around avant and innovative poetry, political, aesthetic, whatever, became increasingly hard to initiate or carry through. Short bursts of the occasional this or that are not enough to sustain involvement. People didn't seem to be interested and even the list runners themselves actively supported the lists move away from an innovative focus and became increasingly fearful of offending the sensabilities of a more generalised list membership. The list lost its dynamic. I was critisised for saying something that Americans would not understand, for example - ridiculous - don't say this, don't say that, don't offend the academics, don't offend Uncle Tom Cobley and all. At the same time an increasing number of posts seemed to be from people who had no idea about British innovative poetry, people for whome the cliched rubbish of performance slammers is the ultimate in innovation etc, and worse, posts from people who run things like poetic advice websites. And we had to be nice. Stay nice. I'm not sure why I've stayed. Too lazy to sign off i suppose and who knows what tomorrow will bring.
Tim A.
