To begin - an apology for what follows. I wanted to write this down now and here
seems as good a place as any. So if you are not interested in these things then
just delete.

By chance I began the other day to re-read my copy of New
British Poetries - The scope of the possible (Ed. Robert Hampson & Peter Barry,
Manchester University Press 1995) and my head is spinning. 

I got hold of my
copy some 5 or 6 years after it was published and realise now that I never read
all of it and still do not understand some of the more complex things said. When
the book came out in '95 I was two years into my Terrible Work project. I call
it a project and not just a magazine because it was just as much a personal
project of probes and questions as it was a vehicle for a variety of
non-mainstream poetry. What suddenly became obvious in this recent re-reading of
NBP is that it was asking the same questions as I was asking in Terrible Work
(and since, here on this list and elsewhere), the difference being that it was
giving coherent answers. And they are not answers that anyone on the mainstream
side of things would like or agree with either - not that the book provides one
answer, it gives a handful, even if obliquely, none of them straightforward but
all of them vital. 

The early 90's, corresponding with the time I was
starting TW (1993) and the essays in NBP were being written, was a kind of
high-point in the rift between the mainstream and the avant or innovative scene,
which was far smaller and more isolated than it is now. It was a high-point in
the rift because there was virtually no contact between them whatsoever, all the
rows and rancour had already happened so the only sound was that of silence. The
avants had been first dissed then marginalised then ignored. When I first became
involved in these things I never realised either the extent or the depth of this
situation but by the time I'd been running TW for a a few years the reality
became pretty clear, and with it came more and more questions. Now, 20 years
after NBP was published, it is evident that the things talked about in the book
are as important as ever and, I'd say (some of you might not agree), the
differences are as stark as they ever were. What has changed is the
context.

Some of the answers/reasons I've given here and elsewhere regarding
questions of the great divide have been my own garbled attempts that correspond
with many of the things said in NBP. But I am not an academic and do not have
that 'training'. Recently in reply to Robert Sheppard asking me why I stopped
reviewing I said that one of the main reasons was that I found it more and more
difficult to explain why I liked the poetry that I liked, while explaining why I
disliked something was easy. Reading NBP again goes some way to explaining this.
The poetry that I really like also happens to be poetry that is difficult to
talk about, therefore, when it is talked about, it generally involves
complexity. This situation is not a coincidence, but neither is it imperative.
What it means is that this poetry, however marvellous it comes across at first
or tenth reading (it doesn't really matter) elicits the desire to be discussed
because the conditions in which it exists, in relation to the 'mainstream',
invites a far-reaching interest. It isn't that it has to be 'explained' before
the poetry can be appreciated, far from it (though i do believe that in some
conceptually inclined work things tend to work that way round) even if it does
mean that part of the pleasure for some comes from the explication, but it does
mean that, everything considered, there is a lot more to talk about, if so
wished. This applies to all 'literature' I suppose, but this adds to the mystery
of why such poetry is not talked about by those who talk about almost anything
else. 

Probably the most difficult of the essays in NBP is Peter Middleton's
'Who am I to speak - The politics of subjectivity in recent British poetry'. I
got lost in its second half but grasped enough to realise that Middleton was
giving what is essentially a 'political' reason for why linguistically
innovative poetry across a very wide spectrum is not acceptable to the
mainstream. It is something that I've always felt to be true ( see the
differences between myself and Peter Riley on this) even though I couldn't
explain why. I'm still not sure. The book doesn't cover everything, it seems to
be short on the more sociological explanations that you get, from A. Duncan for
example, and me on occasion, but it says enough to still be of vital importance
for anyone who is interested in the nature, history and continuing relevance of
this debate. Yes, the context has changed, and this makes it difficult to see
the wood for the trees sometimes...

Apologies again - steam now let
off.

Cheers

Tim