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:
Lyn Hejinian
Bernadette Mayer
Fanny Howe
Alice Notley
Sean Bonney
WS Graham
Stephen Rodefer
Tom Raworth
Lorine Niedecker
John Ashbery
Lee Harwood
James Schuyler
Frank O'Hara
Joanne Kyger
and Simon Smith had a similar section:
"& further: Spicer, O’Hara, Blackburn, Wieners, Schuyler, Williams, Stevens, W.S. Graham"
We felt that a magazine coming out in 2025 couldn’t get into poets who were a-doing it in the 1950s. Although it is true that some of the best poetry of the last 10 years has been written by people who are old, certainly around in the 1970s and seeing what played out then. We should point the camera at what is actually there, not just people under 30. Obviously, if you add these two groups, the count is not 207 but about 220.
blackburn - I think there was a Paul Blackburn. I don't know who he was. I suppose it is easier to list poets whose work is still alive than to list poets who have simply disappeared. But the historical process involves both kinds.
I (AD) was at an event last night where there was a talk about the New York School. They certainly featured in the deep memories of our contributors. Someone (could it have been Greg Woods?) suggested that the gang wouldn’t have been so famous if they had all been living in Des Moines. The town with the most names in our fabulous list is Glasgow. (Is this because I rigged the results? no). All over the island, poets are tearfully wondering if one day they can live in Glasgow and be suffused with its nimbus. One day! one day!
Over a wide span, the poets we polled have definitely got an admiration for the New York School. That is a broad conclusion. Classical European modernism, and the poets who were writing in Britain in the 1970s, are not "elective ancestors" in the same way. This is the version of "usable history" which a new generation has invested in. French poets do not feature at all. One could almost draw a map of what has disappeared from view. Maybe if you are steeped in the New York School your poetry will come out sounding like all the other English poets your age.
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:
Lyn Hejinian
Bernadette Mayer
Fanny Howe
Alice Notley
Sean Bonney
WS Graham
Stephen Rodefer
Tom Raworth
Lorine Niedecker
John Ashbery
Lee Harwood
James Schuyler
Frank O'Hara
Joanne Kyger
and Simon Smith had a similar section:
"& further: Spicer, O’Hara, Blackburn, Wieners, Schuyler, Williams, Stevens, W.S. Graham"
We felt that a magazine coming out in 2025 couldn’t get into poets who were a-doing it in the 1950s. Although it is true that some of the best poetry of the last 10 years has been written by people who are old, certainly around in the 1970s and seeing what played out then. We should point the camera at what is actually there, not just people under 30. Obviously, if you add these two groups, the count is not 207 but about 220.
blackburn - I think there was a Paul Blackburn. I don't know who he was. I suppose it is easier to list poets whose work is still alive than to list poets who have simply disappeared. But the historical process involves both kinds.
I (AD) was at an event last night where there was a talk about the New York School. They certainly featured in the deep memories of our contributors. Someone (could it have been Greg Woods?) suggested that the gang wouldn’t have been so famous if they had all been living in Des Moines. The town with the most names in our fabulous list is Glasgow. (Is this because I rigged the results? no). All over the island, poets are tearfully wondering if one day they can live in Glasgow and be suffused with its nimbus. One day! one day!
Over a wide span, the poets we polled have definitely got an admiration for the New York School. That is a broad conclusion. Classical European modernism, and the poets who were writing in Britain in the 1970s, are not "elective ancestors" in the same way. This is the version of "usable history" which a new generation has invested in. French poets do not feature at all. One could almost draw a map of what has disappeared from view. Maybe if you are steeped in the New York School your poetry will come out sounding like all the other English poets your age.
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