Swift - Poetry without borders

TODD SWIFT discusses the ambivalent role of the British publishing industry in the global development of poetry and the English language

British poetry is often thought to be parochial, even xenophobic – one thinks of Larkin’s quip he’d visit China if he could be back for tea or Hobsbaum’s argument that experiment was bad. It usually involved the smuggling into the “English tradition” of something foreign – a word here, a phrase there – or, god forbid, a whole new style or form. Stephen Fry observed in less than witty fashion that modern poetry was mostly “arse-dribble”. On the basis of which, I half expect Fry to be elected the next professor of poetry at Oxford.

And yet, as we all know, London was also the kilometre zero of modernism, and it was in England that Wyndham Lewis, Ezra Pound, and even the later-conservative, TS Eliot, introduced the ideas of innovation and shifting values in poetry that are still the ne plus ultra of English-language avant-gardism, in poetry.

Even as it takes money from the Arts Council, in the names of diversity, accessibility, and internet connectivity, the British poetry establishment continues to be startlingly close-minded to the forces that everywhere else in the world are changing the way writing is disseminated, shared, and published. British poetry, once merely aesthetically and culturally backward, now contrives to remain technologically limited as well.

British poetry is, at the top, hardly diverse, accessible, or internet-friendly. The recent shortlist for the 2007 TS Eliot Prize in the UK, was an eye opener in more ways than one. The panel of judges was able to draw from a long list of collections published in 2007, in Britain or Ireland. The list of the books not selected reads like a Who’s Who of immensely-talented, poets of international stature: John Ashbery, Margaret Atwood, Leonard Cohen, Geoffrey Hill.

Daljit Nagra, the most talked-about, and talented, younger poet to emerge in England this decade was not included (no doubt his witty hybrid style of merging Punjabi and English alarmed too many writers), nor was the fine young Caribbean Kei Miller, nor any of the other books by black British writers out this year. This isn’t to carp – the final list is strong – but it is not representative of Britain’s heterogeneous ways of using language.

This is not an isolated example, but a useful and indicative way into the idea of poetics, which is at the heart of mainstream contemporary British poetry’s quarrel with internet-based poetry, and publishing on the web. The key point to keep in mind is that British poetry’s cultural elite does not want to reach a larger audience. If it does, it has a funny way of showing it. The reasons for this are twofold. First, a genuine disagreement over what constitutes poetry and poetic diction. Second, a control of the literary agenda.

Let us take the poetic disagreement, first. In a recent essay in Areté, titled “On Bad Poetry: Daljit Nagra”, the basic battle lines were drawn on this issue. There is a strong camp of British poetry critics that believes poems should use the language of Orwell and The Economist – clear, precise language, expressing logical arguments, and treating of proper, serious subjects. Paradoxically, this is not because they wish poems to be popular. Many poems that approach the charm of music – such as those by Dylan Thomas, E.E. Cummings, or Daljit Nagra – are complex in terms of syntax and argument, and resist easy interpretation.

This is why Don Paterson has written disparagingly of Dylan Thomas, and his “florid operatics”, and why Sean O’Brien did not include any “hysterical” poetry from the Forties in his recent anthology, The Fire Box. Instead of a lyrically complex use of language, the chief mainstream poets argue for tropes of mastery, and craft. Poetry is a piece of metal to be banged into shape and cooled, not the fire that melts the metal in the first place. Rather than flow and fluidity, hard, definite form, is desired. Ironically, these are modernist values, but put at the service of an anti-modernist agenda.

Given that the current mainstream idea of what poetry should be is so rigid, much contemporary American, Canadian, and Australian poetry, appears to be beyond the pale – and is therefore unwelcome. Here, the analogy with immigration controls is possible. In the past, publishers and poetry editors (the first line of defence against foreign styles and authors) could manage the appearance of such work in the UK. Today, this is less possible, as the internet allows for more porous borders.

You might think, given the universal access such web-surfing provides, British poets would seek to enjoy the advantages of this ubiquitous new world – and allow their own work to be distributed around the world. Not so. Very few established British poets allow their new poetry to be published online. Amazingly, Britain has no internationally-acknowledged online poetry magazines of the stature of Jacket in Australia.

There are exceptions – George Szirtes has a widely-read blog, as do younger poets Ros Barber, Katy Evans-Bush, Ben Wilkinson and Nathan Hamilton. Paul Muldoon has a flashy web site. Edward Barker’s site is a good place for poets in the UK, and presents the more experimental perspective.

But for the most part, trying to get a “name” poet to submit new work online is like pulling teeth. For instance, as editor of Nthposition, an award-winning and respected online journal, I see the kind of submission levels current in the UK. Leading American, Australian and Canadian poets will send me work. Many fewer UK poets, with more than one or two collections, do. Why is this?

The reason is likely control. As one Oxford graduate once explained to me, the British publishing system is elitist and hierarchical. It is not about radical shifts or revolutionary process. Poetry publishing is part of this static system. In Britain, poetry publishing involves a select number of “gatekeepers” – they’ve been called, critically, the “poetry police” – who are the editors of the poetry lists at Cape, Faber & Faber, Picador, and a few other larger houses.

These few men (they are all men) share a poetic sensibility which is ruggedly traditional, tilting towards the style of Irish poetry best exemplified by Seamus Heaney and Derek Mahon. It is the kind of good, observational poetry that seeks its epiphanies in a well-expressed “voice”. The best of the poets these lists support are both popular and respected.

What these gatekeepers do not do is support a broader vision of a poetry without borders. In a recent interview with Andy Brown, Don Paterson, editor of Picador’s poetry list, remarked that too much poetry was being published each year in Britain. Thirty books were too many. On the contrary, many more books should be made available to readers each year – either in print, or electronic formats.

The current media claims that poetry is “dead” in the UK come from the feeling that “nothing is happening” – that poetry is no longer relevant, to youth or contemporary culture. The media gathers this sense of moribund pace from the tempo implied by the publishing schedules of Picador, Cape and Faber, who publish only a handful of new poets each decade.

If the main poetry lists were to acknowledge the huge alternative “backlog” of poets and poetries being written and published despite them online, they would put themselves out of business. This is the main reason why they publish so few poets. However, their ongoing claims to represent the true state of poetry may eventually bring about their downfall anyway, unless they change to suit the times.

In the meantime, many younger poets are beginning to create new independent presses or start new magazines. Still, the poetry establishment exerts a great pressure on most poets, through the prize culture that predominates in the UK. There have always been literary awards, but it is telling to note that the older generation of famous British poets actually predate the latest surge of awards.

The new generation that emerged in the 90s and was a hugely successful promotional campaign claiming “poetry was the new rock and roll”. This attempt to brand poets created a new landscape for poetry and poetry marketing in the UK. It is worth noting here that there are few serious Poetry Prizes in the UK for poems found online.

House styles emerged, as the poets became ever more branded. Where once there had been “the movement” or “the group”, there were now “publishers’ poets”. Investing in these few, carefully-groomed authors, the poets who were selected to be promoted and published, needed to be seen to be not simply exemplary of the best of their generation, but rare.

If poets are to be sold as commodities, it is better that they are diamonds, not coal. The best way to establish this rarity is to have prizes that favour those who represent a limited vision of what 21st century poetry is. Like movie stars of the golden age, these poetry celebrities became household names but curiously untouchable and distant.

This idea of the “rare star” has a direct impact on how such poets, and, more immediately, the next, younger generation coming up behind them, seeks to “play” the poetry system in Britain. Younger poets know they need to win a National poetry prize, or get an Eric Gregory, or have a poem selected as a Forward best of the year, to really make a splash. Appearing even in print magazines is frowned upon.

One very successful younger poet told me not to submit poems to any British magazines – that wasn’t how one interested publishers. Instead publishers “heard about” who was good, often at parties, and would approach those they were interested in, quietly. Such a closed system is evident when one checks most publishers’ websites. Very few welcome unsolicited poetry submissions. Like in Hollywood, the governing ethos is: “don’t call us, we’ll call you”.

In such an environment, placing one’s poems on the internet is seen as a defeat. There are dynamic, tech-savvy poets trying to change this. The Poet Laureate has helped to create one of the world’s best online poetry archives and the British Library now archives online magazines like Nthposition.

The internet poses a real existential threat to many of the mechanisms that are in place to protect “the English line” of poets and defend an old-fashioned idea of what poetry publishing is. At the very least, the internet suggests that quality writing can be presented for free, destabilising the idea that literature is something to be sold, as opposed to being simply shared and appreciated.

Despite the fact that one of the biggest changes in society in the last decade is the rise of a new omnipresent digital landscape, mainstream British poetry mainly continues to live in an anti-internet village as opposed to the global one. Given how most other aspects of British culture now work online, it is to be hoped that poetry’s often-closed shop will open up, too. But as it opens, it will be more open to scrutiny, comment, and co-operative new work, from outside observers and practitioners. It may, therefore, have to change more than its skin. Under pressure from the virtual dimension, British poetry might one day have to change for real.

Todd Swift is Oxfam poet in residence (Great Britain), poetry editor for Nthposition online magazine, a visiting lecturer in creative writing at Kingston University at the graduate and undergraduate level and a core tutor for The Poetry School. He is the editor of many anthologies and four of his own poetry books have been published, including most recently Winter Tennis (2007).