At least you can rely on TS to be provocative! Here's yesterday's blog post:

"An interesting post from Curiosa Hamiltona on Salt's Brave New World pronouncements. A lot of it (Salt's blog post) sounds like it is simply watered down from the sort of thing I (and many other poetry activists) have been saying (and fighting for) for the last ten or more years (i.e., open up a space for more poets, more readers, and use the net do so). My six-year-old essay for Vallum, above, for instance, suggests the idea of a fragmented, diverse, and lifestyle-based audience for poets.

"This poetry activisim, on my part, was never done to make money - maybe even to lose money - (I am not a "salesman"), and has cost me dearly in many UK poetry circles. I have shown integrity, and conviction, by sticking to a long-time policy of supporting various kinds of poetries and poetics (Fusion Poetry), and encouraging free or easy access to poetry, via new media. However, when I say this, some radical avant-garde critics call me a capitalist or worse (though I advocate mainly free distribution via the Internet) - but when Salt puts it into practice, they are somehow suddenly above reproach. Salt once stood for something unique in the marketplace of ideas, not simply books.

"Salt's now a business, and the model is partly borrowed from Bloodaxe, and partly from Faber. The idea that poetry is "for everyone" is good in principle, but trite pap when put into practice. Read Bernstein, among others, on this. There is a little thing called "taste" - and sadly, in Britain, most people without much experience of poetry express an interest in precisely the sort of neo-Georgian slice-of-life empirical rubbish that Salt poets and poetics used to question, and present a viable alternative to. The Salt "brand" is in danger of becoming meaningless - all things to all people.

"But Salt is right to note that the arrival of an under-40 generation of poets and performers using the Internet, stage tours, and other digital means, signals a relatively new wave of production, and consumption of poetry (one that has, in fact, been happening, since the late 90s). I am an administrator of the first, and one of the largest, Facebook poetry groups, for example, with over 2,400 active members. This wave of writing is simply not reviewed, or discussed, with any seriousness, in the British media, even in that section concerned with literary coverage - nor is it represented by most publishers of poetry in the UK - although Eggbox and other small presses are starting to do it.

"I think what concerns me about this sudden Salt celebration of the multiplicity of the poetic audience is that it seems mostly market-driven, and consumer-led (i.e. "rejoice, folks, now you can have a car in any colour under the sun!"), and underwritten by advances in technology - but not advances in poetics, or cultural consideration. If there is a poem or poet for every reader, how soon do we devolve down the lonely path to a private-language scenario, or a "that painting goes well with my walls" attitude. Poetry, friends, can be difficult. It is not meant to only please, or entertain, or appeal to, readers - but to confront, provoke, and challenge (as Salt's own back catalogue establishes). In Salt's new landscape, as it has been drawn in their recent blog post, it isn't clear whether this diversity of purchasing option isn't better for the seller, than the artist."

Do we really need to read Bernstein to find fault with the idea of trying to make poetry for everyone? Swift's reliance on authority rather than argument begins to grate.

Just because Salt publish a new manifesto now, does that mean that they and others haven't always believed, to some extent, in more readers, more poets etc? Sometimes a philosophy takes a long time to put into words.

Is long-term inflexibility in one's convictions really a sign of integrity, or does it just equate to tunnel vision?

Finally, this 'Poetry, friends, can be difficult'. Sounds rather familiar, and isn't it altogether rather contrary? When a publisher says it wants to broaden poetry's readership and appeal, that doesn't mean that they think all poetry is too difficult all of the time and the challenging aspect of it needs to be excised; it means that that aspect of poetry should fit in alongside others. Poetry, friends, doesn't *have* to be difficult.

It's precisely this kind of straw-man argument that makes me deeply sceptical of the avant-garde tendency in Anglo-American poetry. Yes, I'm prepared to work hard at poetry that doesn't immediately make sense to me if I have a certain amount of confidence in the author's intellectual sophistication. But why should I give them the benefit of the doubt when they are so obviously and proudly unaware of everything that's happening outside their own enclave?

This brings to mind Laurie Smith's comments in the new Magma. Reviewing the latest Poetry School anthology, Laurie takes exception to the suggestion that it is full of unconventional and original poetry:

"As one would expect from the School's activities, all the writing is transparent - there isn't a line in the book whose intended meaning is unclear. Given this high level of technical skill, everything depends on the quality of inspiration and the editors suggest that 'much of the writing sidesteps the conventions of contemporary verse in favour of adventurousness and independence of spirit'. In fact, none of the poems in the book departs from 'the conventions of contemporary verse', conforming rather to verse conventions established by the early 20th century, including collage and prose poems. The claim and its inaccuracy point to a tension at the heart of the Poetry School project: how to stimulate formal originality and emotional adventurousness in a context that values clarity of expression and skill with traditional forms very highly? In the event, the poems are mostly well-made rather than experimental, meditative rather than passionate."

Agreed. Moreover, the tone, both pompous and whingy, makes it difficult to take seriously. Either TS doesn't care how this strikes people or, worse, is unaware of the effect. If it's the latter, such tone-deafness doesn't bode well for the integrity of his work. As for his declared integrity as a promoter/supporter of the kinds of writing he approves of, this may be admirable. However, those in possession of integrity rarely feel the need to boast about it. Declaring your integrity is a bit like telling people how brave you are. Such breast-beating is unlikely to have the intended effect (unless you're a challenger in a WWE contest).

And telling people (who never sought your opinion) that they need to read Bernstein is a excellent way of robbing that writer of a few more potential readers. Of course, if Bernstein is well and truly avant he may genuinely appreciate this.

The 'neo-Georgian' tag, by the way, is a classic piece of lazy thinking. How many current mainstream poets does that actually describe: Simon Armitage, Carol Ann Duffy, Seamus Heaney, Wendy Cope? Nobody that I can think of. You might as well call them neo-Augustan or neo-Metaphysical - it would be equally meaningless. The comparison derives, I suspect, from Alavarez's attack on the 'gentility principle' in the introduction to The New Poetry, where he singled out some poems by Larkin ('At Grass' and 'MCMXIV', I think, though I haven't got the book here) as representing a nostalgia for early C20 simplicities. Such nostalgia was very much part of Larkin's personality, of course, as it often is with painfully complex people. And in 1962 there was good reason for seeing both it and Larkin himself as central to a narrow conservative tendency in British poetry, though one that was already breaking up. But it doesn't represent the whole of Larkin, let alone the whole of 'mainstream' poetry even at the time. Nor is it accurate to equate with it with the Georgians, who thought of themselves as modernizers and chose their name as a contrast with their Edwardian predecessors. But the use of a tag like this saves you actually having to think about the poets concerned and work out their characteristics for yourself.

What's going on with Todd Swift at the moment? Has he decided to bite as many people in the arse as possible this year, Guinness Book of Records style?

Luckily for me, I'm so up to my chin in writing at the moment, I have zero time left over for political chitchat. But for what it's worth, this sounds like a foot-stamping exercise as Salt slips further away from the grip of an avant minority and into the wider waters of the mainstream. Not that I have any problem with avant writing and ideas; indeed, I consider them absolutely essential for the progress and future development of poetry. But this from TS is not worth treating with any seriousness except to marvel at how he still believes in the old argument - that the mainstream dilutes and weakens poetry, kept purest in its avant form.

He's generating hits for his blog.

Interesting exchange between Swift and Szirtes in Eyewear's comments stream. GS deals with TS's assertions very calmly and lucidly. There's a summary of it on Szirtes' blog HERE

Anyway, the foot-stamping and steam-blowing seems to have something to do with some historical rift between Salt and Todd. Gripping stuff.

Oh dear. Perplexing and troubling.

And highly libellous too! I don't think you need to know too much about this to realise Todd is telling a highly selective version of the story about the 101 Poets book.

EDIT - Or rather, not so libellous now, because, as so often, there has been a change of heart, or perhaps a threat of action and the rant has disappeared.

Sure Todd can be an expert in peeng on his own chips, his recent patronising dismissal of a mainly positive review comes to mind, but he is still capable of moments of brilliance, such as this.

I'm not sure if Salt is losing its edge...but it is very hard to keep a blade sharp even if you have the right tools.

Surely one of the best Canadian dancers of his generation?

Hi! Just back from the beautiful island of Arran. Lovely place.

As a poet interested in that fuzzy area known as non-mainstream, I have to say I agree with a lot of what you're saying here. It's an insult not a piece of criticism. I can't see anybody wanted to go back and write like Gordon Bottomley & WH Davies! Or Lascelles Abercrombie...

Whatever they thought they were, however, they were not modernizers, not really. Sure, they helped to clear out some of the poeticisms that littered the previous generation's verses; but they were basically shifting the deckchairs on the Titanic rather than doing anything to change things.

There were some good poets numbered among them, but not many. Edward Thomas is the only one I can think of who could possibly be an influence on contemporary poers.

No, if they had some modernizing tendencies, they didn't go nearly far enough. But I'm interested in the way they get picked out as a symbol of everything reactionary in verse, when they weren't that either. You see the same thing in literary theory - champions of postmodernism often take the New Criticism as representative of the Bad Old Days when there was no systematic, rigorous thinking about literature. But in fact they were very systematic, and came up with the Death of the Author before Barthes did.

Another target: there was a time when poor Hugo Williams was picked on by all British avant-gardists as representative of What is Wrong With Mainstream Poetry. I think it was because he wrote some autobiographical poetry about his childhood, father etc. Which, of course, you mustn't do.

That 'possibly' is rather sweeping Steven. D.H. Lawrence? Robert Graves? John Masefield? None of these could possibly be an influence on contemporary poets? Lawrence was/is certainly a big influence on my own work. MacNeice thought him one of the most important poets of the 20th Century and I'm inclined to agree. Some of Graves' poems (e.g. 'It Was All Very Tidy') could be called modernist and have a contemporary flavour, as does Masefield's famous 'Cargoes'.

I know DH Lawrence was once included in a Georgian anthology - but did he ever really fit in it? His sensibility was essentially Modernist...

John Masefield an influence?

Robert Graves too was never really Georgian. Something between Modernist & Georgian perhaps?

Mind you, thinking about it, neither was Edward Thomas, really. But he's the closest.

Lawrence was the only poet to be published in both the Georgian and Imagist anthologies. Which suggests that was happy to take any opportunities available to him. I don't think he really belongs in either group, and indeed he still seems a one-off even at this distance.

Though Lawrence and Graves may have been untypical, they were included in four of the five seminal Georgian anthologies published between 1912 and 1922. Edward Thomas, so far as I can tell, wasn't in any of these, though he seems to have been associated with the movement (if it can be called that).

The question, surely, isn't whether Lawrence or Thomas or Graves fitted in, but whether it is worthwhile judging all the poets of any movement/group according to its worst shortcomings, and presuming which ones can and cannot possibly be an influence on contemporary poets.

Who can say who or what will influence a person? Yeats and Hardy meant a lot to Larkin; likewise Hopkins with Heaney, Whitman (I'm guessing) with Ginsberg, Leonard Cohen with Muldoon. Perhaps some aspect of Masefield or Walter de la Mare's dreamy music and imagery is even now exerting a tidal pull on some post postmodernist, advance-reargard-postillion or whatever he/she may be dubbed 20 or 50 years hence. How utterly deathly boring it would be to imagine that all contemporary poets worth their salt will be influenced only by poets (or 'poetics') deemed correct or suitable by fellow contemporaries.