I have stuck here to dead UK / Irish poets who were at their best in the C20... which ones do you like most. I think guests may be able to vote without joining (??). You can pick up to FIVE.

Announce and comment on your choices if you like, or just vote. And feel free to moan about who I've left out of the 20.

Um, no Plath? I take it you're saying she's American. Rather than not good enough for the list?

I've never thought of Plath as British.

I'll moan rather than vote: Owen died in 1918 and Kipling in 1936. There's two of my votes flushed down the pan already.

Edit: just noticed the "at their best in the 20th century" bit. I prefer Rudyard's earlier stuff, though 'If' was published in 1910. And he was always a better storyteller than poet. That doesn't forgive Owen's omission, though.

I'd have to say I prefer Kipling's Boer War poems (esp. Lichtenberg, Chant Pagan and Bridge Guard In The Karoo) and his Great War poems to the early stuff. I probably wouldn't have had him in my five, though, so I'm rambling rather pointlessly!

Question, then: do you think of Eliot as British?

[Odd contradiction here. On an earlier thread somewhere in the mists of time, I'm fairly certain you stated that you would consider yourself eligible to appear in an anthology of English poets, though you are, in actual fact, Scottish, on the grounds that you've lived in England for some ten years now. Just an observation.]

Jane, you took the words from my mouth.
And, er, Denise Levertov is there...

Cool poll, though.

Seems consistent to me. Roddy is taking the country of origin not the country of naturalization as his definition.

I'm wondering how long I give it for the statistics to balance out before assuming these results are really representative of the views of this forum. Ted Hughes the number one poet? Only four votes for Yeats? What is the matter with you people?

Exactly my point. Read back. :D

And what's wrong with Ted 'God' Hughes getting the lion's share of the votes? Such an immense talent, such a varied, colourful and lengthy career.

Re Owen - yes, a fine and inventive poet who would have gone on to be an exceptional one, perhaps. But his reputation lies on a small number of poems. I thought his name might come up - Hardy too.

I think of Levertov and Gunn as English, Plath and Eliot as American. How long did Plath spend in the UK in total? Four to five years? Early 1956 to early 63, with a year or two back in the US here and there?

Anthologies are different kettles of fish and anthologists have to decide their criteria. I've had to make this decision recently with my forthcoming anthology and have decided to consider only those non UK/I poets who are long term resident (10 years plus) and who have only published with UK/I publishers.

Of course, I've lived in England for 10 years plus and have only published with English publishers! The day an anthology of English poets is published, we can discuss whether it's right or wrong to have Scottish born, Nigerian born, Irish born, Jamaican born, US born etc poets in there. We can also discuss the pigs nesting in the trees!

Perhaps you didn't read my post? I was replying to Anne, not you.

Well, de gustibus, I suppose. It seems to me to have consisted mostly of wrong directions. But what about Yeats, for heaven's sake? Everything you said about Hughes applies to him in spades. And would we even have had poets like MacNeice without him?

My votes go to Auden, Larkin, Jennings, Hughes and WS Graham. Although it pains me to leave out MacNeice, RS Thomas and Dylan Thomas.

I have a copy of Poetry Quarterly from 1948ish with some very early Denise Levertov in them...

I'd also include Mina Loy as a British poet (though I wouldn't have put her in the above list, because although she died in the '60's, her work was pretty much out of view from the 1930's till the '80's, and even now not many are aware of her. She's good though.)

Anyone else want to include Edith Sitwell? (When she was good she was very good, when she was bad she was terrible...)

Which reminds me - why no A A Milne in the list, hmm? I'd guess the poems have influenced most of us - either positively or negatively - though I doubt many would be willing to admit to that influence ...

I was going to mention the absence of Keith Douglas but I suppose he's similar to Owen in this case. Betjeman?

As a general point, I'd be curious to know if the vote was for the 'best' rather than 'favourite' whether the results would be different - for instance, I would certainly have Auden as one of the best but in terms of my own taste would perhaps veer towards MacNiece instead.

I think you're right, Luke. I picked my five favourites - Hughes, RS Thomas, Bunting, Jennings and Mackay Brown. My five best would certainly drop the last two.

Yeats is now up to a slightly more respectable total, but still trailing behind MacNeice, which would have surprised both of them, I suspect. Only one vote for MacDiarmid (and that's me)! I guess Roddy isn't a fan, then. Poor Edwin Muir is the only poet on 0. MacDiarmid would have been pleased about that, anyway.

I think the results may be slightly unexpected due to the wording of the survey: 'favourite' for me demands an emotional response rather than a cerebral analysis of the 'best' or 'most interesting' or 'most influential' or 'most read' etc. My response to 'best poet' would have been different, I think.

Yes, I had favourite in mind rather than a critical appraisal. I chose Auden, MacNeice, MacCaig, Graham and Gunn.

I chose MacNeice, Auden, Larkin, Gunn &... umm... oh yes, Yeats. Odd list, Roddy! I don't think I'm as conservative in my tastes as my votes make me sound.

MacNeice
Larkin
Auden

I picked out Graham, Levertov (yes, I'm her one vote!), Auden, MacCaig, and RS Thomas.

I guess Hugh MacDiarmid wouldn't be pleased to see all us Scots abandoning him. I like his best stuff.

I have to say I'm puzzled by the unpopularity of MacDiarmid. Is it because people actively dislike him (and I know that he was a cussed old bigot in many ways, and also wrote a great deal of irredeemable crap), or is it because they've just fought shy of him, perhaps put off by the poems in Scots and the even more impenetrable 'On a Raised Beach'? And by the fact that his masterpiece, A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle is not only difficult but extremely long? I would make a case for him as one of the richest, most musical, most intensely lyrical poets of the century. Also a lot funnier than most. If you're sceptical, try 'Water Music'.

That's the problem for me. Mind you, MacDiarmid is hardly alone!

I like some of his stuff though. I guess the Scots will be off-putting for people even though his Penguin Selected comes with a rich page-by-page glossary.

It does seem odd, doesn't it? Quite surprised at the lack of convincing choices. Who should have been on then: Beer, Causley, Rosenberg, Raine, Davie, Spender, Garioch, Owen, Fuller, Barker, Betjeman, Brooke, de la Mare, Burns Singer, Empson, Beckett, Graves, Hardy?

Roddy:

Rosenberg on the strength of one poem.
Hardy for sure, though I admire more than love him. But yes.

Er - we're talking English, yes? And dead? This question has sent me to my bookshoelf, where I see that my twentieth century dead poets are almost all American and Irish, besides the Russian, German etc ones. Of cours Graves for some poems. And Barker for some.

By the criterion Chris is busy laying out right now on another thread, the power of poetry to disturb - I guess to disturb US, now - seems to reside more in mid-century Americans than in the English. Am I wrong?

Housman should perhaps be there, as well as Hardy. And Edward Thomas, definitely. Though I'd still have voted for the same five.

If you stick to the mainstream. probably not.

But Bunting, Mina Loy, Edith Sitwell, Barry MacSweeney...

And how about George MacBeth?

I suspect that British poetry of the 20th century still has a lot of gaps in it...

Bunting is there, of course, with a strong 7%. He was one of my votes.

I was referring to the power of poetry to disturb - there were lots of mid-century poets in Britain who were the equal of American poets in adventurousness; but I don't think they were the ones that got promoted then. Gael Turnbull, Basil Bunting, WS Graham even, Christopher Middleton, Charles Tomlinson possibly, got shunted into the sidelines.

Actually, as far as "disturbance" is concerned - Ted Hughes would certainly qualify. And Redgrove probably.

And whatever did happen to George MacBeth's reputation? I still think he was brilliant (not avant-garde enough or not mainstream enough, I suppose)

MacBeth is in the kind of posthumous slump that affects many writers, I think. It seems to me that he's due for a revival.