The Poetry Book Society has announced its 20 'Next Generation' poets, the once a decade list that aims to, as chair of judges Ian McMillan puts it, "lead our national cultural conversation for many years to come".
As always, there's going to be a lot of argument about who was included and who wasn't, as well as the criteria used to make the choices and the entry requirements that do seem to make things harder for small presses.
I'm not going to rehash those arguments here, but I do find Daljit Nagra's inclusion slightly strange. Not that he's not a fine poet, just that I would have thought he's already very firmly established as one of poetry's big names - I would have thought the place could better have gone to a less well-known poet. On the other hand, maybe outside poetryworld he's not that well-known, and this is, after all, an attempt to get people who wouldn't otherwise read poetry to pick up a book.
Anyway, congratulations to all concerned, and I'm particularly pleased to see Rebecca Goss, Luke Kennard and Helen Mort among the 20 - all poets whose work I enjoy a lot. Of the others, there are several who I'm still to read, so if nothing else it will give me some ideas for the future.
Showing posts with label Rebecca Goss. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rebecca Goss. Show all posts
Thursday, 11 September 2014
Monday, 15 November 2010
Magma 48
The new issue of Magma arrived the other day, and very good it is too. The poetry itself is excellent, with particular favourites so far being DA Prince's three pieces (especially Bog oaks), and poems by Jonathan Edwards, Helen Mort and Michael McKimm. There's loads more too - they seem to be packing an awful lot in these days.
The articles are the highlight of this issue for me, though. I enjoyed the ten poets writing on 'beauty', and Eavan Boland's piece on Robert Herrick. Best of all is Karen Solie (one of my favourite poets) on first coming across Frank O'Hara's poetry. There are a couple of poems by Solie, too, which are almost worth the admission price alone.
I reviewed books by David Briggs, Rebecca Goss and John Ash for this issue (all very different, but all with a lot to offer too), but the review I really want to highlight here is David Morley's take on Martin Figura's Whistle, a book I've mentioned on here before, and which I'll return to soon. It's a brilliant piece of work, and the review does it perfect justice.
The articles are the highlight of this issue for me, though. I enjoyed the ten poets writing on 'beauty', and Eavan Boland's piece on Robert Herrick. Best of all is Karen Solie (one of my favourite poets) on first coming across Frank O'Hara's poetry. There are a couple of poems by Solie, too, which are almost worth the admission price alone.
I reviewed books by David Briggs, Rebecca Goss and John Ash for this issue (all very different, but all with a lot to offer too), but the review I really want to highlight here is David Morley's take on Martin Figura's Whistle, a book I've mentioned on here before, and which I'll return to soon. It's a brilliant piece of work, and the review does it perfect justice.
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