I know I asked for specifics but pardon me if I don't follow all these links. I can't resist, though, extending my most insincere commiserations to any poet prepared to whine about not being invited to Buckingham Palace.
But, David, why this excessive concern with Todd Swift? - it's like he's stolen your lunch money.
I don't think my last posts were understood. What I'm saying is that these questions can be discussed without personalising them - something sadly recurrent on this list.
I have limited interest in the whole question of prizes, but what little interest I have is utterly extinguished if it has to be mediated by what x, y or z said on the matter in some blog entry of long ago.
Jamie
> On 4 Oct 2015, at 21:42, David Lace <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> Jamie, you're right, Todd isn’t advocating poetry prizes as such but you can tell from his repeated referrals to them in relation to the poets he features on his blog that he thinks them important. Here are a few Google results relating to this:
>
> https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=site:toddswift.blogspot.co.uk+prizes&gws_rd=cr&ei=i4URVvPrLYnxUviIkNgD#q=todd+swift+eyewear+poetry+awards
>
> So it’s easy to get the impression that he thinks of poetry in terms of status. Here’s a link to a piece in which he's asked to comment about the reception at Buckingham Palace to celebrate contemporary British poetry:
>
> http://www.writeoutloud.net/public/blogentry.php?blogentryid=39705
>
> In the article he says:
>
> “Naturally not everyone can be invited, so the list has become a de facto Who's Who. It would be a fascinating list to see. I don't seem to be on it, for instance, but I know that the young poet, Keiran Goddard, shortlisted for the Melita Hume prize, is, though yet to have his debut collection out. I actually would have attended, gladly. I am British, and would have been glad to be included. Yet again, though, these hierarchical lists in British poetry - already a small room on a small island - tend to compound divisions, rather than overcome them. We shall see. I hope everyone invited has a grand time.”
>
> That last bit is odd seeing as he has made his own list of who’s who among young British poets. See:
>
> http://toddswift.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/are-you-on-eyewear-young-uk-poets-list.html
>
> .....
>
> From this link's address you can see that Todd seems upset at not being invited to the palace, by his use of "usual" and "suspects" in the addresses description. This sound like bitterness to me. Why be bitter if poetry awards ...
>
>> On 4 Oct 2015, at 16:01, Jamie McKendrick wrote:
>>
>> ......
>> You could argue that anyone who complains bitterly about the results of
>> literary prizes attributes an exaggerated importance to them but that
>> would hardly make him unique or worth singling out.
>> Jamie
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