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David, I agree with the article’s general stance, that the poetry it criticises is not “artful”; by that it presumably means that it is mainly like prose speech, without any prosodic elements etc. I wouldn’t call it an attack, though. Yes, it is quite critical, but Rebecca Watt’s isn’t being personally attacked — i.e. it’s not a character assassination. The older I get, the mellower I become in my attitude towards the dominance of such poetry that is criticised in the article. A few years ago, I would have been indignant on behalf of the avantgarde, and would have praised such an article. But now I don’t care whether what is considered as being “mainstream” continues in its dominant position. Poetry of whatever type will always find its own audience. What does it matter if avantgarde poetry is not popular? It still has an audience. Perhaps it’s all to do with individual avantgarde poets feeling that because they can’t reach a large audience they are in some sense invalidated as artists. It would be tragic if this were the case. From: David Lace <[log in to unmask]> Reply-To: British & Irish poets <[log in to unmask]> Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2018 12:42:23 +0000 About the reply the anonymous person made to the PN Review attack on Rebecca West. Just to say that PN Review comes across as quite snobbish and outmoded—as if it is a magazine from the early years of modernism—around the 1920s. I hear it doesn’t sell as well as it did. No wonder.