David, as Tony’s question shows, this definition offered in the interests of clarity quickly becomes problematic.
The first point of ‘widely read’ would only account for about three or four contemporary poets, and then maybe another ten or so lagging some way behind. Maybe you could redefine that as ‘probably just slightly more widely read’ but even then I’m not sure. Three or four poets normally thought of as avant-garde probably outsell most of the other category, J.H. Prynne and Denise Riley to start with.
Then your second idea of ‘easily understandable’ again becomes quickly problematic as the example of Hill and a number of others would show. Poetry just isn’t an easily understandable art - it takes effort, and that goes for seemingly straightforward poets too.
Your third idea has a bit more mileage though it would be easy to find counter examples from both sides.
The vagueness would be ok, we could live with it fine, if the terms weren’t continually being weaponised.
Jamie
> On 29 Jan 2018, at 16:17, Tony Frazer <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
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> So where does Geoffrey Hill sit ?
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> Tony
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>
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>> On 29 Jan 2018, at 16:13, David Lace <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
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>> Tim (and others), wouldn’t the whole avant/mainstream definition confusion thing be solved by simply defining “mainstream” as widely read and easily understandable poetry that follows conventional grammatical and lexical rules; and “avantgarde” as not being like this.
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>> ---------------original message----------------
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>> Tim Allen wrote:
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>> OK then, would the situation re Watts/McNish be any different if there was no such thing as the avant or innovative or whatever? I think the answer is a whopping big NO. This whole issue has got nothing to do with the avants as such, it's a problem for the main strands in current UK poetry. The fact that I have for a long time detected its problem with 'class' and 'anti-intelectualism' can be completely cut off from my practice. So if there is a mapping to be done then this Watts/McNish issue maps it.
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>> Cheers
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>> Tim
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