[Duncan Gillies MacLaurin]

Originally Posted by Maryann Corbett

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.

I can respect this call for moderation, Maryann, but I find myself strongly disagreeing with you. Our protests at the domination of FV will perhaps be seen by some as merely self-serving, but that should not make us hesitate to protest. Dim anthologies like this one are a insert-a-particularly-foul-swearword-here outrage! I like a lot of FV, but as a staple diet it gets very, very dull. We're not doing FV any favours by tolerating its unjustified predominance.

We've recently seen a fair bit of campaigning for women being fairly represented in the poetry world. Surely it's soon time for us to crawl out from our bunkers and assert the rights of metricists and rhymists!

Duncan

[Susan McLean]

I suspect that barriers to rhyme and meter in some journals are only half the story. Even with metrical poetry, there is an enormous range of styles, and not all of them are welcome everywhere. So a journal that publishes Nick and Alicia will not necessarily be open to John and Jayne. It doesn't necessarily have to do with quality, but with style.

Susan

[Jayne Osborn]

I applaud what Duncan said.

The worst thing about this book, IMO (but that's without having read it) is its title.
It should have been called, perhaps, "The Best British Poetry 2011 according to Roddy Lumsden".

If I counted correctly, there are 71 contributors; I've come across about half a dozen of the names. Lumsden says "There is an interesting mix of well-known, less-known ones and emerging poets", and almost a quarter of them are under 30, which he thinks is great because it represents "a coming generation which I believe to be the strongest ever in UK poetry."

Here's a link to the first poem in the anthology, called in her kitchen

[Maryann Corbett]

Jayne and Duncan, I can understand and sympathize with a desire to argue about the quality of poems chosen for a "best" anthology. I often think that's the purpose of the American BAP--to stir up curiosity and argument, because that probably gets more people to buy the book!

I understand that the objection is to the imbalance, the preponderance of free verse and the paucity of meter and rhyme. But that really wasn't what I was getting at. What I'm talking about is each person's willingness to appreciate more kinds of poems.

Tim is a poet who writes a great deal of free verse (when he isn't writing fiction) and who has contributed quite a bit of critique to the Nonmet board. He's gone out of his way to give us useful information about the state of publishing in the UK. To me it feels a little less than collegial to use this thread as a place to lament the hegemony of free verse, as if none of our colleagues wrote free verse.

But that's enough out of me.

[R. Nemo Hill]

What Maryann said. And Susan.
Quit whining.

Nemo

[Orwn Acra]

At least you can dance to delphinium.

[John Whitworth]

But the pleasures of whining cannot be overrated. That's part of what this particular thread is for. So quit whining about Brits whining.

[W.F. Lantry]

Originally Posted by John Whitworth

So quit whining about Brits whining.

Hmmmm. What happened to the stiff upper lip? Has it suddenly gone slack?

Jokes aside, I'm pretty sure someone put out a book with a title like "The Very Best and Most Beloved British Poetry of 1906." Imagine flipping through that volume today! Quelle rigolade!

Thanks,

Bill

[Andrew Frisardi]

Originally Posted by W.F. Lantry

Hmmmm. What happened to the stiff upper lip? Has it suddenly gone slack?

Jokes aside, I'm pretty sure someone put out a book with a title like "The Very Best and Most Beloved British Poetry of 1906." Imagine flipping through that volume today! Quelle rigolade!

Thanks,

Bill

How about 1895.

Edmund Gosse had some thoughts about the situation in 1894.

[Tim Love]

The worst thing about this book, IMO (but that's without having read it) is its title.

In his intro Lumsden says "Now let's deal with the B word. We have decided to go with the familiar branding in other countries of such books. ... Someone else would have made a different selection and next year another editor will do so."

I've come across about half a dozen of the names.

I've heard of about half of them, but I don't read (let alone subscribe to) many of these mags. As he says in the intro, younger poets might be more likely to send to mags, especially online ones. There seems to be a more general feeling that the current crop of twentysomethings is better than usual - see my Recent UK poetry anthologies round-up.

Here's the first poem in the anthology, called 'in her kitchen':

I didn't get that poem, even after reading the poet's comments. It comes from Poetry Review, whose editor, Fiona Sampson, extols many traditional virtues in her Poetry Writing: The expert guide book (see the link for quotes). I find it hard to understand how someone who likes (say) Beethoven can also like Bach and Boulez, but Sampson and Lumsden might have correspondingly wide spectra of poetry appreciation.

I think the US poets here should note the online[-submission] mags that are gaining status, and welcome the chance to see what's happening in the UK now beyond the slow-moving world of books. I think budding UK poets should be heartened to know that "More than a third of the poets are yet to publish a collection" (one of the poets was in my local writers group last year!). UK Formalists can note that the door's open, but you won't be in the antho unless you send to the mags. About 10% of what I get published in UK mags is in a Form, though maybe not in mags that Lumsden reads (he sent out messages last year, asking which mags he should read. Maybe he's still open to suggestions). UK poets in general might want to submit/subscribe to more magazines - they're still a good way of getting noticed.