No, David. I am for a plurality of styles. In the past, when I was younger, I would have been totally opposed to mainstream poetry. I have mellowed over the years.

I have more or less come to the conclusion that all poetry should be allowed to be expressed, and that it matters little whether any one particular style of poetry is seen as dominant or not, or as popular or not.

This might seem like a sell-out to some, but just commonsense to me. Of course, people should have their preferences, and poetry criticism should be allowed to voice those preferences, but I personally no longer feel the need to engage in these “poetry wars”.




From: David Lace <[log in to unmask]>
Reply-To: British & Irish poets <[log in to unmask]AC.UK>
Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2018 16:50:13 +0000

Have you been hitting the bottle again Luke! :) only joking.

Jeffrey, are you saying that McNish and Tempest are the way forward and that what we call avantgarde and mainstream now is defunct. That's quite a claim.