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Henri, McGough and Pattern not mainstream, Tim? Just go by who published them to find that out. McGough has/had close links with the Poetry Society and did a poetry programme on Radio 4 that only read out “mainstream” poems. Henri was more “avantgarde” in his art—-so Robert is right. But his poetry, as you said Tim, was fairly descriptive and of the moment—much like Armitage. He wasn’t an A C Evans or any other of the 70s mainstream/avantgarde mix poets you mention that were left out in the cold by the “official” avantgarde. ------------------original message------------- Tim Allen wrote: Getting no work done today, thanks Britpo. Now here's a can of worms. thanks Jeffrey. For starters I never considered Henri, ever, as a mainstream poet, I considered him to be an avant entertainer, someone who took forms from the modernist and art world and filled them with lovely real content, made from the world around him. That is not 'mainstream'. His main influence on me was his saying that his poems had no beginning or middle or end. His poems were a type of mind-collage. As someone else said here, Roger is light verse, and only mainstream to the extent that light verse, especially the humorous, is an accepted part of the mainstream, and he is very popular anyway. Brian too was and is mainstream to the extent that his well structured whimsey and love poetry was popular. But this 'willingness to engage with local communities' - here goes... 90% of the time you only get to engage with local communities and schools etc when you get invited in, either by the places themselves or by some arts and/or community organisation. It doesn't just happen. And who gets invited in? Do I really need to answer this? Cheers Tim