Just briefly (and specifically on the Canadian / ex-Dominions poetries): the
Other Place (a.k.a. poetryetc) is more varied in this area -- at least two
Canadian poets, two Australians ...
What gets discussed is mostly (I'd guess) a matter of what any one particular
person has read.
I've given up on feeling guilty about what I haven't read, and more to the
point, the entire areas of geography and genre that I'm entirely ignorant about.
That said, I think Kent's raised an entirely valid point about the composition
of the list -- except, of course, how do you know the colour of someone's skin
through an email? Or indeed their gender? Half the time, given my given name,
I'm cross-gendered ...
[That's leaving aside the brief period of time when I was the only lesbian poet
in the entire history of Scottish literature. A proud and lonely thing to be ...
Mind you, according to the anthologist [who also managed to get my age wrong],
there were only two non-heterosexual male poets in the entire ... etc. So go
figure.]
{Further aside: There's also a possible issue around gender-identity and how
peoplepersons translate and/or respond to/comment on poetry and other works of
verbal art. But I won't go into it unless anyone happens to be interested.}
Hey, this goes deeper -- the default assumption is [still] that anonymous
medieval poetry is written exclusively by males. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't,
maybe it's not important, but weird that it took so long for medievalists to
even recognise that this might be an issue.
So I'm glad Kent's raised (both) questions, but myself, I can't see any easy
answer.
Other, of course, than arranging to live for ever and so have the leisure to
read Absolutely Everything.
Robin
> On 28 October 2016 at 00:44 Tony Frazer <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> Definitely not, Kent.
>
> British OUGHT to mean English, Welsh and Scottish only; Northern Irish
> being added sometimes as in British-and-Irish, and sometimes lumped in with
> the Republic. Ex-colonies / dominions that happen to be in the Commonwealth
> and have the British monarch as Head of State are not included.
>
> As for Canada, it’s one of the great mysteries. Almost no-one knows
> anything about Canadian poets, although a couple do slip through the net now
> and again, but only rarely if they’re still Canada-based. Bök and Mouré would
> be the only two of the latter variety that come to mind.
>
> BUT, there again, when poets from those lands move over here they seem to
> become British for classification purposes, or hyphenated British. I should
> add that I’ve no problem at all with that. Seems right to me.
>
> Tony
>
>
>
>
> > > On 28 Oct 2016, at 00:37, Kent Johnson
> > > <[log in to unmask] mailto:[log in to unmask] >
> > > wrote:
> >
> > This is probably a naïve question, but so what.
> >
> > When one says British poetry, does that also include Canada and
> > whatever remaining lands that are yet legally "linked" to Britain?
> >
> > I am asking because the poetry of these places never seems to be
> > discussed on this List, most noticeably the poetry of non-Caucasian lands
> > still connected to Britain.
> >
> > Kent
> >
> > >
>
