Astley comes out swinging...
Our self-regarding poetry establishment is completely out of touch with the readership of poetry at grassroots level, and if they aren't responsive to that audience, they will lose it completely. I don't often find myself agreeing with A.N. Wilson but he seems spot on with this remark: 'Today's English poets are huddled behind a stockade composed of the public's indifference and their own self-importance' (Daily Telegraph, 24 January 2005).
Nor is this a peculiarly English or British phenomenon: it seems to go with the nature of the all-too-familiar beast, Homo poeticus. This is Billy Collins, writing in the New York Times: 'One of the ridiculous aspects of being a poet is the huge gulf between how seriously we take ourselves andhow generally we are ignored by everybody else' (23 February 2003).
And this is Les Murray: 'Poetry has been captured by a class which prohibits the positive. They see themselves as in perpetual rebellion against society, and it's a rather sour, radical rebellion. I don't buy it, particularly as it practises heavy bullying and manipulation of fashion against people' (NewZealand Herald, 12 May 2003).
Nor is this a peculiarly English or British phenomenon: it seems to go with the nature of the all-too-familiar beast, Homo poeticus. This is Billy Collins, writing in the New York Times: 'One of the ridiculous aspects of being a poet is the huge gulf between how seriously we take ourselves andhow generally we are ignored by everybody else' (23 February 2003).
And this is Les Murray: 'Poetry has been captured by a class which prohibits the positive. They see themselves as in perpetual rebellion against society, and it's a rather sour, radical rebellion. I don't buy it, particularly as it practises heavy bullying and manipulation of fashion against people' (NewZealand Herald, 12 May 2003).
posted by Edward Barker at 12:01 PM
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