I'm a bit confused here David though if you see what I've said to Jeffrey it might help - how are we defining mainstream? Yes I would agree that McGough in his actions, opinions, links and what have you is well and truly mainstream, but his work, mostly humorous light verse, is not typical of what I would call mainstream poetry, but the kind of thing he produces does fit into an accepted slot.
Where did I say that Henri was 'descriptive'? Henri is nothing like Armitage, two completely different poetries. (I don't go along with A.Duncan's 'pop poetry' parameters which I see as more of a polemical use of terminology than an actual analysis). But that's another debate.
I've had to take down Henri's Collected from the shelf to remind myself for above, and realised that there is a lot in the second half that I never finished reading because it was too boring. Carol-Ann was probably telling him that it was good.
Cheers
Tim
On 18 Jan 2018, at 12:45, David Lace wrote:
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.
