"The Best British Poetry 2011"
 

"The Best British Poetry 2011", recently published by Salt, copies the US version conceptually and visually, with nearly 40 pages of notes. It's edited by Roddy Lumsden who's been in Poetry quite a lot of late. He picks solely from magazines (both paper and online - "Shadowtrain", "Ink, Sweat & Tears", "Horizon Review", etc), taking 8 poems from Poetry London and 5 each from Iota, Magma and Rialto. Agenda did well too (so Maryann, it might be worth persevering). No poems from the TLS (nothing took his fancy) or LRB (not many UK poets). Having glanced through it I think it gives a fair impression of what's happening in the UK, and may help you decide where to send your poems. Yes, several poems rhyme. I think it's now available in the US at Amazon

Sorry, Tim, but it really saddened me to read that a book entitled "The Best British Poetry 2011" had the caveat in your post:

Yes, several poems rhyme.

The fact that it even needed to be pointed out speaks volumes.
And only several of the poems?

How can it possibly be the best British poetry if I am not in it? I ask you.

Yes, how can it? :confused:

You might suppose that I am simply paranoiac, but though I have been published in America in the last few years and get lots of stuff into Quadrant (good old Les Murray), my successes in the good old Uk have been limited to The Spectator, the TLS and splendid Rory Waterman. And winning competitions of course. But Poetry London, Poetry Review et-bloody-cetera, no chance.

The truth is the Poetry scene here is dominated by Beeboids. I mean soft-left, Guardian-toting liberals who like flabby free verse (why does it go together with flabby politics?).

Anyway, that's what I say, paranoiac right-wing nutter that I am. Why, I even support the Coalition. Brrrrr!

I forgive you for all that, John. You write damned good poetry, doncha know. (Should I insert smiley here? No. You know I'm smiling a friendly smile, doncha now?)

Yes, there aren't that many places in the UK for good rhyming poems, John, the likes of which thee (and me, sometimes) write, apart from The Oldie, Spectator and Literary Review comps.

Plenty of outlets for free verse. "Oh, but rhyming poetry is coming back into fashion" I hear a lot of people say. :rolleyes:

Ah, Jayne, thee and me and Ann and good old Kit Wright, who I met only last week, will ride off into the sunset. There's always the divine Wendy of curse, but she doesn't depend on Poetry Magazines.

FYI, the poems in this antho that use at least fairly regular end-rhyme come from Magma, Poetry London, Envoi, Northwards Now, Warwick Review and PN Review.

Tim, thanks for this good information.

I've done my share of lamenting the dearth of form in this sort of anthology. But I think we benefit from paying attention to the full range of work that gets published and not sounding as though we don't like anything that doesn't mete and rhyme.

If Nick Friedman's formal work can get into PN Review, and AE Stallings appears in Warwick Review, then I should think John and Jayne could get into those places.