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Wouldn't argue with anything you say below Peter but it doesn't answer my question. On 6 Oct 2015, at 15:04, Peter Riley wrote: > Surely, there are many forms of recognition apart from prizes: getting reviewed and discussed in print, increasing readership, commercial publishers becoming interested, invitations, etc. > > In the first twenty years or so of my career in poetry there were no prizes. Neither were there festivals, nor promotional tours, -- indeed there were virtually no readings; readings began around 1965 i think, and were called "gigs" in imitation of pop music. Neither were there academic poetry appointments temporary or permanent. Neither were there poets in residence in gasworks or anywhere else, nor study of current poetry in the english syllabus (not before about 1960 I think) nor new poetry introduced into schools. Only a handful of poets had careers in poetry of any kind. And the idea that you could as a profession teach people to write poetry was not entertained for a moment. Looking back at that development, it mainly feels as if an enormous amount of money needed to be spent on something and poetry was as good as anything else. Where did it all come from? > > PR > > > On 6 Oct 2015, at 12:44, Tim Allen wrote: > > Just for the record Peter, Wolfgang's post was the first time I, for one, knew your book had been shortlisted. I've been on FcBk but haven't been scrolling down, just stuck in a particularly sticky thread for two days. > > One question, if as you say below, "I looked upon the shortlisting as a recognition not only of me and Tony, but of all the almost completely unacknowledged poets who taught and influenced me from the 1960s onwards", how does this square with your post saying prizes don't have anything to do with poetry? > > Cheers > > Tim > > On 6 Oct 2015, at 12:23, Peter Riley wrote: > >> In using a shorthand designation of "this innovative community`' , Wolfgang , I wasn't referring to people like you who operate in a different field as editor and critics, nor any poet in particular, Tim. No one is obliged to react whatsoever. But there was a definite sense of a sniffy disregard in vaguely defined "innovative" fields. Other people noticed this. Peter Hughes commented on Facebook that no one seems to have paid much attention to the fact... The Guardian too was infuriatingly uninterested in anyone except Claudia Rankine. >> >> I looked upon the shortlisting as a recognition not only of me and Tony, but of all the almost completely unacknowledged poets who taught and influenced me from the 1960s onwards, fine poets (with problems of course) all still viewed, if at all, as aberrations of some kind, and at least six of whom have died recently. >> >> pr