Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

IT is with considerable pleasure that we present a sentence construction kit from which the critic may develop a wide range of erudite observations on any recently published volume of poetry.

     Our ‘sentence modules’ are based on a Somewhat Improved Modular Prose Linear Extension (SIMPLE) system not previously available to writers in this field.

     Sentences may be constructed by linking any four modules from the lists in the sequence 1234. Ambitious critics may find occasional devastating combinations in sequences made from the lists in the order 4321. More rarely, the modules may be ordered 2314 or 2134. These last must be used with great discretion, grammatical errors are possible.

List 1
(a) Apathetic extremism on the one hand, together with
(b) As a consequence of conflicting Celtic urges
(c) Despite emphatic protestations to the contrary
(d) Unless the historical base is widened
(e) Whilst admitting the validity of current trends
(f) None the less it may be postulated that
(g) Rich as these particular textures may be
(h) Whilst conceding ingenious inflexions
(i) This rhetorical question, emphasised by
(j) Though ‘art may be selective’ the passive nature of

List 2
(a) critical orthodoxy
(b) unselective writing of the polemical variety
(c) left-wing preaching to the converted
(d) the recent workshop in Bradford
(e) a tendency to recondite assumptions
(f) his/her over-eagerness to achieve acceptance
(g) the pursuit of even supposed concepts
(h) symbolic systems and analogical notation
(i) the near-extinct oral tradition
(j) new nadirs of imaginative ‘intensity’

List 3
(a) may pre-resonate the situation in relation to
(b) can add little to the provincial awareness of
(c) ought to modify the approach to
(d) will, undoubtedly, aid the confirmation of
(e) should intensify the personal hyperbole regarding
(f) could crystallise the Modernistic attitude to
(g) might yield spontaneous information on
(h) must assert a theoretical pressure for
(i) re-establishes an Anglo-Welsh insistence on
(j) underlines a recidivous pre-occupation with

List 4
(a) the need for a stylistic revival
(b) carpe diem
(c) a verse form of unambiguous charm
(d) congruence in all Nordic literature
(e) an imagery which is both scrupulous and contemporary
(f) the possibility of an Arts Council award
(g) an essentially heuristic behaviourism
(h) Underground ‘juvenility’
(i) an egalitarian concern with avant garde aspirations
(j) the recognition that the world is full of phoneys