[Rory Waterman]

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.