Glad to see my anthology being discussed here, but dispiriting to see people making negative comments while admitting they haven't actually read the book! Thanks to Tim and Rob for making amends with their comments.

It's quite unfair to suggest this is a book which does not favour form. For what it's worth, I'm a predominantly formal poet, whose work generally splits about 70/30 into formal / non-formal, though even my less formal work always employs lyricism, musicality, cadence, things which I consider to be formal tropes.

Flicking through BBP again, I'm seeing much more form than has been suggested. There are few poems in nameable, strict forms, but that doesn't mean that there isn't form involved. There's plenty of regular metre, lots of musical cadence, ample inventiveness with formal principles.

The Allnutt poem posted above is a good example - though it's been posted here illegally - can a moderator please remove it or replace it with a link to the book on the Salt site, where the poem can be read legally on the sample pdf? Am I right in thinking it has been posted as an example of something non-formal? I think it's a beautifully lyrical, minimal piece, carried forward by a clear iambic rhythm.

As to the business of 'Best', this is dealt with in the intro (which can also be read on the Salt page pdf). We are carrying on a tradition of books thus styled which goes back to when I was a child, books which appear annually in the US, Oz, Canada, Ireland etc. It may be contentious, but for better or worse, it means that the book will sell better and get more attention for poets. It means the book will be carried by WH Smith, by the discount chains, be taken by libraries and used in schools and colleges.

Re the dating - the poems selected were published in magazines etc between summer 10 and spring 11 - we were hardly going to hamper the book by erring towards BBP 2010!

On a more personal note, it also means I can afford to take part in such a project. Given that this book took a great deal of research and a whole lot of collating, admin and checking on my part, even if it sells better than expected, I'm still looking at a few pounds per hour for my work.

And is it really so wrong if the book contains free verse poems? Am I misrepresenting UK poetry? Isn't it possible that a free verse poem (and I'm not convinced there is such a thing) might be among the best poems of the year? Is anyone here really so hardenedly factional that you want such a book to be so swayed towards one style of writing?

Well, this is fun! I'm glad you showed up, Roddy, to nuance the conversation.

And I really, really hope you make more than a few pounds per hour for promoting contemporary poetry. I know it's mostly thankless work, and as we've shown here, no good deed goes unpunished, but it's good and valuable work, even if some quibble about terms and others about selection.

And it's always nice to see poets getting paid, even if it's only enough to buy a margarita or two on friday night! ;)

Best,

Bill

Was Hopkins the first of all those Catholic converts who played such a large part in English Literature in the first part of the twentieth century? Outsiders, my bottom.

Welcome to the Sphere, Roddy. I shall read the book, or at least parts of it, the next time I go into one of the two Canterbury Waterstones. I must admit I think 'The Best Poems' is a vile phrase. I suppose 'Some Good Poems I have read' carries less punch. I hope you have put one of your own poems in.

Bill, I am going to see the excellent Wendy Cope next week. Now there's a poet who always gets paid. Is she in the book, I wonder.

Well, if Wendy Cope had sent a poem to a magazine and had it published, I would have considered it. Didn't see one though.

Done, thanks.

Tim's 'review' (he has a disclaimer above it) is here.

Duncan

Good to see you here, Roddy. Thanks for joining in, and for making such an eloquent case. Thanks too, to Tim, for being more alert that I was, and removing the copied poem. Sorry for my slowness.

Well, I for one will definitely purchase this anthology when I go to London next month. A fantastic list of fine writers to enjoy and learn from.

I don't want to be rude, and I have a lot of time for both Duncan and Jayne, but the outrage seems farcical to me. And, of course, since Lumsden's name is all over the book it's quite clear the selection is his. What's the problem? I don't think much of a few of his choices, but he probably wouldn't think much of some of mine. It's a handsome and marketable book, containing a catholic and only slightly idiosyncratic selection, and you don't have to buy it of you don't want to!

It seems as though many self-conscious 'formalists' are forever ready to get their metrical protractors out, as if to provide a true measure of the worth of anthologies or magazines, or the poems inside them. I find it a bit embarrassing, really. There is no conspiracy.

Rory
(no, I'm not in it.)

Rory

There is a bias towards free verse in our day, and that is something that some of us feel should be noted at fairly regular intervals.

Jayne and I are not specifically targeting Roddy. But one has to wade in somewhere, and with that title, well...

No editor of an anthology that was primarily formal verse would ever dream of calling his/her book "The Best British Poetry 2011".

You say "since Lumsden's name is all over the book it's quite clear the selection is his". This is a weak argument. If he'd called it "Some of the Best British Poetry 2011", then it wouldn't come across as being arrogant and exclusive.

Duncan

Why not, if that's what the editor liked most? Like Rory, I'd have thought it's obvious that an editor's choices are that editor's (well informed, cultivated, etc.) choices. No more no less.

Myself, I'm never really interested in the Best of American Poetry anthologies (the only ones I've seen). The selection is really never any better than reading various poems out of some of the good magazines at any given time. I don't honestly see the point of it, other than, as Roddy says, promoting poetry in general--which is definitely a good thing to do. Since I already like poetry, no one needs to promote it to me though.

The appointment as Sole Editor gives one a right to choose all the poems, but gives one no say whatsoever in the title. That is all explained in the book - and earlier in this thread.

In the course of a long "career" in provincial journalism, I have occasionally shed tears over a crass or stupid headline, knowing that my readers would attribute it to me rather than to the sub-editor who had spread concentrated journalese on my Melba toast. Poor Roddy.

I had no idea, Ann! Apologies to Roddy then!! To whom may Jayne and I send our curses?

Duncan

It seems to me that there are more good free verse poems being written than formal poems, though I find the splitting into two camps - us and them - depressing and inimical and, as it happens, more reductive than using the word 'Best' in the title of an anthology. I do not know of one biased editor - well, not on that score, not in Britain (excluding places like Shearsman, which makes its preferences clear). Most of my poems would be regarded by many people here as formal, but I don't feel as though in the four years I've been getting published I've ever been overlooked as a result of writing such poems. As for the title - well, the Best American Short Stories series (etc) has been going on for years and nobody has died. The publishers want it to sell, which seems fair enough. Blame the silly titles of such books on our culture, perhaps.

Oh - I didn't read below Duncan's reply to my post before responding. Sorry.

Duncan - I don't understand why you find the book either arrogant or exclusive. There is no exclusion going on here - I chose the poems I chose and there is quite a breadth there - including much that is formal - have you read it?

Personally, I like the challenge put forward by the 'best' tag. In the US, in recent years, it has been the 'best' as judged by guest eds as disparate as Billy Collins and Lyn Hejinian. It would be a blander concept if guest editors were expected to tick boxes and include a bit of everything, even if they didn't like it.

What I wrote, Roddy, was: "If he'd called it 'Some of the Best British Poetry 2011', then it wouldn't come across as being arrogant and exclusive." That is not the same as saying that I find the book either arrogant or exclusive. I was merely saying it comes across that way because of its title. And no, I haven't read it.

Duncan

"It would be a blander concept if guest editors were expected to tick boxes and include a bit of everything, even if they didn't like it."

Amen.

Nemo

I'm in the middle of reading Best American Poetry 2011, ed. Kevin Young, and I'm finding quite a bit to like. I can't say there's much properly formal poetry, nor would I expect it. This is all tangential to the discussion, I realize, but so long as the selection is transparently subjective (and how could it not be subjective?), then what is the problem, really? You can't edit these anthologies without someone feeling hacked off, can you?

What Nick said. Which isn't to say I don't see the problem, such as it is, with the use of the word 'Best' in these things (the word immediately denies subjectivity, whilst the book must be a manifestation of it) but I understand it and I don't see how it can matter. This thread is pretty grim, really. There are more important things than counting the number of metrical poems in what is just another anthology, and getting pissed off about what is no more and no less than a harmless measure used to make a book of poems sell widely and to help keep a struggling poetry press afloat. In his introduction, RL says that if the word upsets you, a cup of tea and a nap might help. Amen.

Oh, I don't now. It's the chip on my shoulder keeps me writing just to show 'em.

Two reviews in Stride Magazine:

here and here.

Duncan

Interesting discussion, so I've ordered the book.
Good of Roddy to pop in. He's a poet I admire.

I bought the book, and I think it was very good. I meant to say so earlier, but it slipped my mind.

I have ordered it too. Looking forward to receiving it.

Chris

Read and liked it well myself. Kona Macphee seems interesting.

The thought ending in the comma has my total agreement; general agreement with the latter. Nothing more radical (in the formalista Sphere) has been stated about poems in years and years.

Just noticed that post--well said, Rory!

The problem is you have to plow through such numbers of poems, whether fv or form, to get to what's good--in most journals. Not all. Best to ignore the moronic rift and those who perpetrate it.

I have not seen a copy of Best British Poetry 2011, though I'd like to. Anyone have a copy they don't want and would trade for US journals? If so, pm me.

Hi all

I received this book several days ago and have been reading through it. I was surprised first of all to find that the actual poetry is only 112 pages long, most of the rest of the book (pp. 115-155) taken up with contributors' comments and notes. I will be reviewing the book for Loch Raven Review but am so far less than impressed after looking forward to the book and expecting to be dazzled. I note that David Anthony has expressed a liking for Roddy Lumsden's poetry and I wonder if someone could point me to some examples of his work?

All the best

Chris

Chris, a Google will give you a whole lot of links to Roddy's work.

As regards notes etc., that is par for the course. I have before me the Best of American 2007 in which the contributor notes etc. take up pages 121 to to 169. The actual poetry pages are 1 to 120. Before that we have a foreword and an introduction.

The BAP 2001 ditto has contributor pages, acknowledgements, etc.233 to 287.


BAP 1998 gives ditto pages at 283-332.

The Best of the Best American Poetry: 1988 to 1997 edited by Harold Bloom has those pages 303-383.

It should soon be time for the Best of the Best of the Best. :eek:

Seeing as you mention the American "best of", Janice, here's a review of it I stumbled across.

Duncan

Hi Janice

Thanks for the note re Lumsden. Of course, yes, the book contains a list of acknowledgements which is expected for any anthology or individual poet's collection. That being so, I think to list the mag that the poem appeared in under each poem is a bit silly. In fact, when I first noticed those notations below each poem, I initially thought the poem might be an excerpt from a longer work rather than the name of the periodical where the poem appeared.

Best regards

Chris

Chris, I hope this isn't diverting the thread, but speaking only for myself, I find it advantageous to have the source journal listed on the same page as the poem. (It's the same layout in the American versions.) It saves me having to keep referring to another page at the back of the book. The reader who is also a poet might think, hmm, so XXZ-journal takes prose poems do they, or hmm, so ZZX-journal would print something this surreal, maybe I should have a shot at that editor and see what happens. Besides which it can't be wrong to give the poetry magazines that kind of exposure. I think the hard-working editors deserve to be noticed too.

I'm sure you agree that there is no one-stop anthology. Serious writers have a lot of them. I think it is interesting to compare--across eras, across national borders, across trends. I view an anthology as I would a textbook. But I'm a little weird about learning; others might just wish to lie back and enjoy. Alternatively, sit up muttering to their spouse who is trying to listen to a recording of La Boheme or a football match, "My god, just listen to this."

Duncan, thanks for the link to the review. I don't have the 2011 one, in fact I only have a few BAP, bought on a whim when I had sufficient ready cash.