[Matt Q]

I think it's misleading to say that Paterson is comparing Kuar to Auden and Keats. At best, one might say he mentions Keats and Auden in the same article as he mentions Kuar.

Here's the context for Paterson's comments. Watts writes:

Time and time again, the arts media subordinates the work – in many cases excellent and original work – in favour of focusing on its creator. Technical and intellectual accomplishments are as nothing compared with the ‘achievement’ of being considered representative of a group identity that the establishment can fetishise. This is reflected in headlines such as ‘Vietnamese refugee Ocean Vuong wins 2017 Forward Prize for Poetry’ (Telegraph), and phrases such as ‘oriental poise’ and the ‘ragged sleeve’ of ‘ordinary working people’ (Kate Kellaway in the Guardian, on Sarah Howe and William Letford respectively).

So here the focus is more on "proper" poets like Ocean Vuong or Sarah Howe; it's a general point about arts media and certainly not limited to performance poetry or instagram poets. To which Paterson responds:

Elsewhere, we’re in agreement. Watts says “technical and intellectual accomplishments are as nothing compared with the ‘achievement’ of being considered representative of a group identity that the establishment can fetishise”. I think that’s overstated, but it’s a brave thing to say these days.

I would add that we do young, first-book poets no favours through such rapid promotion, which can make them fatally self-conscious. You can’t yet say their work is game-changing, because that’s not how the game works. We might remember that the first published efforts of Keats and Auden met with as much bewilderment as praise, as the truly ground-breaking invariably does.

So in the first paragraph he's in some agreement with Watts on a general point about poetry. And in the second paragraph he's saying rapid promotion of any new poet can be harmful. Again this is a general statement about the arts media and poetry industry, not about Kuar.

But more than this, he's actually saying that you can't call any new poet game-changing or ground-breaking, since it'll be many years before you know if ground has been broken, the game changed. He's giving Keats and Auden of examples of this taking years. He's definitely not saying Kuar (or anyone else) is game-changing like Keats and Yeats were. He's actually saying such a claim is impossible to make. And also, I think, that truly ground-breaking poets are rarely met with widespread acclaim and recognition in the way that these rapidly-promoted poets are.

Paterson makes no defence of Kuar in this article and offers no praise. He objects to Watts grouping Katie Tempest, Holly McNish and Kuar together simply on the grounds of "accessibility". He professes admiration for Tempest and McNish. Of Kuar, he says that most poets don't even consider her a poet. That's it.

Matt