The Times has run an impressive article, singling out a few (ten) younger British poets, for attention. As I recently included or mentioned several of these same poets in my Manhattan Review section, such as James Byrne, Joe Dunthorne, Luke Kennard, and Emily Berry, I can only concur, and in fact, welcome such a focus on them. However, I cannot help but feel there is something a tad disingenuous about the "Facebook poets" tag that has been applied here. Not by the poets themselves, I hasted to add. As with "The Movement" tag, this is a media label.I am the co-founder of the original "Poetry" group at Facebook, with over 6,000 members - and I can tell you, while poetry circulates via that leviathan, it does so at a snail's pace; few real poets post work online. Facebook mostly reps mediocre poetry; it is superb for advertising events, magazines, contests, etc. - and in that way only is this "generation" of under 35-year-olds shaped poetically by that networking service.
Primarily, the young British poets are formed by the same literary and personal forces that have shaped poetry in England since at least 1799 - because, of all the arts, poetry is the least likely to be immediately shaped or altered by technology (it requires simply a writing instrument and paper, or even, simply a memory).
However, few people have been as evangelical as myself since 2003, in advocating the use of e-books, blogs, websites, etc., to promote and encourage poets to reach new audiences, and each other, online. In the sense that the Internet breaks down barriers, and opens poets to new sources and alliances, these younger poets are perhaps differently-wired. But not totally wired.
Comments
COMMENT PUB. DATE: 09/09
Eyew, what do you mean "; few real poets post work online"?
Do you mean, the article is implying some kind of *exodus* of the poetry to the INTERNET, a kind of renunciation of material existence? Whereas *really* the Net's significance is in fuelling and shaping what goes on in the material world -- increasing its energy and visibility, a population explosion and a diaspora, not an exodus?
& do you mean that however well-intentioned, the hype is actually vaguely toxic, since it instead makes poetry seem like something youffs do up in their rooms when they should be studying for their GCSEs? & meanwhile Scary Facebook is humanised a touch, a nod to the doddery: "what are they getting up to?, bless them, they're trying to be the next Ted Hughes, NOT," (as we know is ACTUALLY the case) "Twittering tactics for the knitting of 10,000 semi-eviscerated paedophiles's back flesh into a 3D 'diddle-laager' which will simply ROLL invincibly across London city crushing its childrens' chastity, powered from within by teams of sportsweared chavs, listening to their music, like one of those hamster balls"? Even so this doesn't add up to "few real poets post work online." Many do, right?
Also "typically shy of announcing their poetic proclivities to anyone?" ha ha ha
For you
have touched
Much Faces
Many Few Favorites
Flow-ets of Facebook
and with a rough slap
you gave to the crowd:
"mostly reps mediocre poetry"
it phases
it resents
it hates
Full-on lavishes, in spite of what it cannot to be.
The full expansiveness of "mediocre poetry."