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I welcome Anthony's letter about English poetry encompassing the globe. Scanning through the contributors to the current issue of New Hope International Writing as well as an array of English, Scottish, Welsh and Irish (both North and South), there's two Indians (though one works and lives in London), a Nigerian, a Zimbabwean, a South African, a New Zealander living in Brunei Darussalam, an Israeli, a couple of Americans, an Australian and a Greek. No Canadians or Japanese this time round. Anthony is quite right, though when he say that > When these boundaries break down it tends to be Brits in the > US or Americans in the UK. As far as Australia, NZ, SA are concerned one of the barriers to wider interaction has always been the cost and pace of snail-mail. Anthony suggests a mega-anthology ----- What's the answer? Well, I for one dream of the mega-anthology covering work in English from everywhere: the millennium's not a bad time to do it, either. How about it someone? Could we interest some press or other? Could we interest a Commonwealth cultural grouping to fund it? Could we stop it being full of Motions and Morrisons and Raines? Could we prevent it being a zoo-like collection of "interesting specimens from out there" (the most likely outcome, I fear) ? ---------- The problem with any such anthology is that it could only be a zoo-like collection, unless it were multi-volumed and that would put it out of reach to most buyers. It is the inherent nature of any anthology and a criticism levelled at most eclectic magazines. Any other kind of anthology has to be more focussed in one way or another. If it is Either/Or then you can't win but there is room for all styles or poetry and we can look for it the world over. Gerald England Gerald England's Home page - http://www.nhi.clara.net/gehome.htm New Hope International - http://www.nhi.clara.net/nhihome.htm Christine's page - http://members.tripod.com/~lacemaker/index.htm NHI Review - http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Oracle/1735 Cyberscribers - http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Cafe/7573 %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%