By a curious coincidence (?), Rexroth includes Rayner Heppenstall, whom I
hadn't heard of before yesterday, when I discovered he'd written a book called
_Reflections on the Newgate Calendar_ (which I promptly ordered, as inter alia
I'm trying to construct, not as easy as it might seem, a coherent ordering of
the set of texts which together might be called "the Newgate Calendar"), and
there he is as a poet!
Nice to see Robert Garioch there, among the Scots, and more obviously
Norman McCaig. As George Barker and the early (presumably) W.S.Graham are
also included, it suggests that Rexroth might have latched onto the one poetic
movement that Dylan Thomas did father, the Apocalypse Poets. (McCaig was
part of it in the forties, I think, but later disowned the connection when his
writing style changed.)
But why is the execrable Stephen Spender there, but not MacNeice?
Suggests I ought to read the anthology, which I've at least
downloaded.
Robin
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Sunday, January 09, 2011 3:49
PM
Subject: Re: Thanks, Robin.--Other
Questions
Rexroth's introduction is salutory and fascinating; as you say,
full of bracing insights. I hadn't read it before. Many thanks for the
link.
xA
On Mon, Jan 10, 2011 at 5:37 AM, colin herd
<[log in to unmask]>
wrote:
Another interesting aspect of that anthology is that
Scottish poet Joseph MacLeod is in it twice. Once as Joseph Macleod, and
again as Adam Dirnan, the pseudonym he used when he became famous working
for the BBC, to avoid the stigma of fame affecting the approach he took when
writing poetry. Would be interesting to know if Rexroth was aware they were
the same writer, though perhaps not, because the secret was not made public
until 1953.
On Sun, Jan 9, 2011 at 2:33 PM, GOODBY JOHN
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Jess, that Rexroth anthology is The New British Poets
(1948) - New Directions, so I don't think it came out in the UK. But it
gives a great, because outsider's viewpoint, on the then state of British
poetry. As you say, it has plenty of Scots - including Maclean, Soutar and
Macleod - Welsh, and some Irish in it, and doesn't endorse a
London-centric
viewpoint.