Sunday Times Diary Poet Spatathon

John Dugdale writes:

Interesting developments concerning the inter-bardic spat mentioned here last week, as Don Paterson tells the Diary that Craig Raine — who recently launched a multi-warhead attack on him for anonymously rubbishing Andrew Motion as “shite” — was misinformed. Paterson admits that he did use the term when asked for his response to Motion’s appointment as poet laureate, but says it didn’t reflect his view of Motion’s oeuvre, and was just “a totally idiotic response by a drunk Scot on receiving the news”.

and

Things are clearly hotting up in the genteel world of verse, as last week also brought news of legal rumblings following a lecture by Bloodaxe’s Neil Astley slating verse publishing and reviewing. Once available in full online, the talk now has a section cut “for legal reasons”; Astley says it dealt with a poet and critic he declines to identify, who protested via his solicitor. Is this stroppy chap influential, then? “He likes to think he is.”