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

Ten years ago, it seemed to me that we were too chauvinistic about English poetry, too insular in our critical attitudes; now I think we are rather too humble about the achievement of British poets. Ten years ago, too few translations of important European poets were available. Very few people, for instance, knew the work of writers like Zbigniew Herbert or Vasko Popa; now, possibly, there are too many translations. Ten years ago American poetry was probably not regarded highly enough this side of the Atlantic; now American poetry and poets are largely overestimated, and, too often, English reviewers and critics genuflect to American poets of dubious talent. The fact is, American poetry—like that which is called 'poetry' everywhere—is generally bad.

Perhaps I should list a few of our own disasters. The Penguin Modern Poets series appears to have gone to the barking dogs though it is capable of recovery—the newest volume happily contains some work by Ian Crichton Smith, a Scots poet rather neglected in England. The Poetry Reading scene is polluted by pop poets (like Adrian Henri) chanting inferior dance slush lyrics to youngsters who never heard the corny commercial singers who once worked for Ambrose or Geraldo. There are sound poets like Bob Cobbing at H.Q. or in the provinces who blow farts in different keys, much to the joy of all the children. Also there is The Poetry Review which has abandoned its Georgian vocabulary of 'myriad' and 'tis' and 'bliss' only to f*ck c*nt and sh*t. Finally—every list however arbitrary has to conclude somewhere—there is the deterioration of the better bookshops. If a good restaurant can be judged by its chips then a bookshop can surely be evaluated by its poetry display. Pride of place now is given to Leonard Cohen, Rod McKuen, Adrian Henri and Mary Wilson, whether in Foyles or in Better Books.

One interesting feature of the last ten years is the evident need by readers and critics to proclaim and praise a recent major poet. Hence the overestimation of genuine minor poets like Robert Lowell and Sylvia Plath both sides of the Atlantic and the generous reluctance to focus on the self-indulgence of, say, Robert Lowell's latest Notebook, or to point out that many of Sylvia Plath's poems, despite some extraordinary successes, deserve to be treated as neurotic artifacts. Hence the attempt to upgrade the lesser, aging, secondary figures of the modern movement, David Jones and even Basil Bunting, now that nobody wants to read another thesis on Yeats, Pound or Eliot. Hence, too, the neglect of an obviously minor (though enjoyable) poet like Bernard Spencer.

Not all is dismal however. So many good poems have been written over the last ten years—and not all of them by my friends. Moreover, half a dozen really talented younger poets—under 35—are also working in England or Scotland or Ireland. They have already published poems that are individual and felt, imaginative yet truthful to that reality we all commonly perceive. In Wales, too, there is much activity though, there, poets like Leslie Norris and John Ormond have matured late and belong to an older age group.

A few months ago, while discussing a biography of Robert Frost with Stephen Spender, I was asked, 'Wouldn't you wish—like Robert Frost—to be the only poet in the world?' Despite my own self-evident egocentricity I could honestly answer, 'No'. For I know that if I were the only poet in the world not only would I be very quickly certified and incarcerated in a mental hospital, but also I would not be able to enjoy reading my contemporaries. The fact is, despite the querulous tone of this note, I enjoy reading many of my contemporaries, older and younger. Nor do I, by the way, wish to see poetry develop according to any doctrinaire theories. During the next decade I still expect to be surprised. I would like to be surprised in a just way.