[Roddy Lumsden]

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?

[W.F. Lantry]

Originally Posted by Roddy Lumsden

Glad to see my anthology being discussed here,

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

[John Whitworth]

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.

[Roddy Lumsden]

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.

[Tim Love]

can a moderator please remove it or replace it with a link to the book on the Salt site

Done, thanks.

[Duncan Gillies MacLaurin]

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

Duncan

[Adam Elgar]

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.

[Janice D. Soderling]

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.

[Rory Waterman]

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.)

Originally Posted by 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

[Duncan Gillies MacLaurin]

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