Mairead:

>"I don't know what to say about this.  For me poetry is about language.  So abstract nouns are fine.  Writing what I knew would be an excellent recipe for writer's block.  I think what we say on this subject is informed by personal history and mutually agreed shared history.  It's not comprehensive."<

Of course it's not comprehensive, I said it was particular, to England, over a certain period, a 'general drift' etc. I said there were exceptions. Don't you believe me then Mairead?

You say poetry is about language. Well, I might kind-of agree with you, but I know that 90% of the people involved with poetry in UK would strongly disagree, even now. For the 'workshop school' poetry was not language, poetry was the disclosure of a heightened truth through the medium of the tool of language as prompted by an individual's deep response to an experience - that sort of thing.

Tim A.