For ‘anyone with a casual interest in what poetry is’ do you really think Frost, Bishop, Plath and Heaney are such a bad place to start?

Last time Frost was mentioned I have the impression you said you’d never read him.

 

Paterson could fairly be held responsible for his ‘taste-making role’ as an editor of Picador, not in my view for saying he admires any of these figures’ poems so much he’d like to have written it.

(Actually I’m not even sure what it means to want to have written someone else’s poem. Shorthand, we can guess, for intense admiration.)

I’m still struggling with your notion of ‘context’. Unless you mean he should change his taste because he’s on the radio?

 

This does sort of link with the canonical anthology discussion. This obligation to be ‘representative’ no one necessarily signs up to...Isn’t this role-model stuff something you’d hope poets, writers in general, would keep free of?

Best,

Jamie

 

From: [log in to unmask]" href="mailto:[log in to unmask]" target="_blank">Luke

Sent: Sunday, September 24, 2017 4:20 PM

To: [log in to unmask]" href="mailto:[log in to unmask]" target="_blank">[log in to unmask]AC.UK

Subject: Re: Larkin, Heaney, listpeak

 

Hey, sorry. Context is inexhaustive, and i won't limit it by saying much. You can add e.g. his representative / taste making role on a popular news broadcast, for anyone with a causal interest in what poetry is or appears to be, and he's not even challenging himself, not really.

 

Luke

 

On Sun, Sep 24, 2017 at 4:13 PM, Jamie McKendrick <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

Hi Luke, my telepathic faculties are on the blink. Could you add a bit more context yourself?

Best,

Jamie

 

From: [log in to unmask]" href="mailto:[log in to unmask]" target="_blank">Luke

Sent: Sunday, September 24, 2017 3:09 PM

To: [log in to unmask]" href="mailto:[log in to unmask]" target="_blank">[log in to unmask]C.UK

Subject: Re: Larkin, Heaney, listpeak

 

Add more context ha.

Luke

 

On Sun, Sep 24, 2017 at 3:08 PM, Jamie McKendrick <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

Well, if Don Paterson the poet can be separated from the writer of that belligerent and oddly vague introduction to New British Poetry for a moment, I consider his personal taste on this matter fair enough and not at all the legacy of Conquest (who might only have approved of Frost). I haven’t followed the series but, ‘safe’ or not – true, they all fall within a particular band – if it’s what he ‘wishes he’d written’, he doesn’t have to pretend to be someone else.

Best,

Jamie

 

From: [log in to unmask]" href="mailto:[log in to unmask]" target="_blank">Peter Riley

Sent: Sunday, September 24, 2017 1:31 PM

To: [log in to unmask]" href="mailto:[log in to unmask]" target="_blank">[log in to unmask]C.UK

Subject: Re: Larkin, Heaney, listpeak

 

 

On 24 Sep 2017, at 10:58 am, [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

 

Each evening this week on Radio 3, Don Paterson can be heard “reflecting” on “Five Poems I Wish I’d Written.” They are by Seamus  Heaney, Elisabeth Bishop, Michael Donaghy, Sylvia Plath and Robert Frost. This is the legacy of Conquest, the obstinacy of staying on safe ground.  Even the big-poetry-prize scene is generous and encouraging compared with this, in spite of all the show-biz.

 

 

;pr