Regarding, your post on British and Irish Poets about why I’m bringing
Holland's remark up. It’s because given that she’s the editor of Horizon
(one of Salt's spin-offs) she is in a position of some responsibility in
that her tastes (if prejudiced) could affect the stylistic balance of the
poetry appearing there. She claims on the Home page of the site:
‘I’m not interested in becoming too prescriptive about the sort of
poetry, fiction, critical prose or literary oddities I’d like to receive from
contributors. I’m not positioning myself either left, right or dead centre
of the mainstream. What I will be seeking, however, in the work
received, is an openness: to the physical, to the wider world, to ideas
and language, and to the possibility of failure.’
Yet, the comment from her I’ve posted here is:
‘As an editor, I am open to most things, including this ... type of work.
As an editor, I have to be open to it, otherwise I wouldn't be doing my
job properly. But as a poet myself, and as a reader/listener, I have no
problems in saying that I dislike it intensely.’
(http://www.saltpublishing.com/horizon/index.htm)
Even though she acknowledges that a conflict of interest exists,
nevertheless, how can we really be sure that her prejudices don’t come
into play in the majority of instances? The only way to ensure balance
would be for Horizon to have two editors of poetry one such as Holland
and one who doesn’t “intensely” dislike non-mainstream poetry.
On Sun, 11 Oct 2009 22:06:26 +0100, Peter Riley
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>Actually, this topic (arising from Kent Johnson's blog) is currently
>being discussed on four different lists, partly among the same
>people, and I think that to some extent it has been deliberately
>placed on them at the same time. This shouldn't happen. When you
think
>you have something to say you don't know where to send it. You think
>you see a response to somebody and it turns out to be in a different
>channel. It's confusing and tiresome.
>PR
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