Survey of admired poets
Survey Because the DOB of contributors spanned 50 years, we were concerned that the magazine would split apart. We thought that a feature on which poets people admired would act to close this up. Seeing the position of poets, after one book or many, in the collective memory, would emphasise that everyone is attached to the audience and dependent on their memory. So we asked our contributor to name a cluster of their favourite poets. About twenty people replied. The detailed report is in the printed version of the magazine. We collated and got a list of 207 different names. This probably is a statement of “what happened in poetry in the last 20 years”. Actually the data is extensive and the list is a just a set of pointers to it. Peter Manson got the highest vote count - six. So if you want one 21st century poet, it looks like he is the one. The printed version will omit this entry. Maria Sledmere made a list of admired dead poets, and we thought this could be left out. Here it is:...