Just to say that I've been belatedly reading through this discussion and enjoying everyone's thoughts. It took me forever to track back to the link to Tim's essay so I'm putting it here again, solely for my own convenience.

http://www.argotistonline.co.uk/Allen%20essay.htm

While I differ strongly from Tim (and perhaps most folks here) in taking a basically relativistic view of literary value, to me the corollary of this is not universal indifference for all poetry but, on the contrary, reverence. The challenge as a reader is to find the meeting-point with a poet where that reverence becomes genuine and not just a theoretical concession.  A high number of the modern UK writers that I keep going back to are notably un-academic (though I'll run away from defining that)... whether it's Maggie O'Sullivan, Allan Fisher, Bill Griffiths, Ken Edwards, Richard Makin .. or Elisabeth Bletsoe who is not usually considered A-G despite her important Torrance connection.  ... as well as some people on this list, who I won't embarrass. Of course I'm also an Andrea Brady fan, but there you go.

Upset to learn of Robin Hamilton's death.  I was wondering why we hadn't jousted about Shakespeare or Donne recently.