The Dark Horse (Summer 2022)

That Gerry Cambridge guy is going to get himself into trouble one of these days. In his editorial he mentions new orthodoxies and tribalisms, and the risk of defying current trends, comparing the pressures to conform to those experienced by Milosz. He sees hope in reviews by Hofmann and Graeme Richardson - signs of independence of mind.

Maitreyabandhu's "Paid Patter: Is Poetry Worth Criticising" article continues the theme

• "at least three trends are killing our assessment of contemporary poetry: fear and reputational risk; an overprotective poetry press unwilling to criticize new writing; and the substitution of socio-political concerns for artistic imagination"
• "In the crowded marketplace of new poetry, a powerful theme - rape, violence prejudice - can take place of powerful poetry"
• "A poet's work is increasing judged on whether it serves a function" which "turns poetry into versified political journalism"

He thought that "by Mahon's own standards ["Against the Clock"] is weak" though (for understandable reasons?) it was widely praised. He lists some unclubbable, independent-minded critics. He refers to Gioia's essays. In his interesting, informative introduction to "The Best American Poetry 2018", Gioia points out that in assessing the status of poetry nowadays, it's difficult to interpret the statistics, because "what they measure isn't what currently matters ... No one fully understands what is happening because poetry and its audience are changing too quickly in too many places". For example, poetry appears non-condescendingly in TV series like "The Simpsons", "Bones", "Elementary". He notes that some aspects of the poetry world haven't changed -

• The most popular topics of the 10,000+ poems he read were, in order, Family, Childhood, Love, Poetry and Nature.
• He notes an interest in the sonnet form - "The poetry wars of the late twentieth centry have been forgotten. Form and free verse are no longer viewed as mutually exclusive techniques".

Gioia's in his seventies so he's seen fashions come and go, seen how issues of quality end up being issues of taste. Grumpy old men (they tend to be men) may indeed be bitter and twisted because fame has passed them by, but alternatively they may be free to express their ideas because their poetry career isn't at stake. Now that younger poets tend to be creative writing tutors, they're in a particularly vulnerable position. When I write I realise I'm exposing my limitations and biases, knowing that I've nothing to lose. I try to calibrate my opinions so that half of what I read is judged to be better than average, and half is worse. For what its worth ...

• "Sandgrain and hourglass" by Penelope Shuttle had much about her feelings for her late husband. I thought those were the weakest poems of an over-long book, but to say so would be insensitive to Shuttle and Peter Redgrove. Why take the risk?
• "A portable paradise" by Roger Robinson gets top marks for compassionate subject matter (grief, injustice, etc) but what about the poetry? Yet it won the TS Eliot prize.