Roddy Lumsden and Salt have announced - over at Facebook - that they'll be launching a new series, The Best of British Poetry (starting with 2011). This is modelled on the wildly successful series started by David Lehman back in 1988, when the first guest editor was John Ashbery. Lehman, as Series Editor, has given the series credibility, and a coherent identity, that plays well off of the various poetics each of the guest editors brings to bear. And, what editors: Lyn Hejinian, Rita Dove, Paul Muldoon, Louise Gluck, Adrienne Rich, Harold Bloom, Jorie Graham, Robert Bly, AR Ammons, John Hollander - none less than a major figure, in their way. As Series Editor, Lumsden will have a job on his hand to provide that level of serious continuity, and charmed broad church integrity, which somehow Lehman has pulled off. Fortunately, Lumsden knows most poets he will need to reach.
However, to truly reach the heights of the American series (there are other versions, say, in Ireland, and Canada, much younger), the guest editors will have to be stellar. An equivalent level of varied names would be: Geoffrey Hill, Patience Agbabi, Wendy Cope, JH Prynne, Craig Raine, Don Paterson, Alice Oswald, Michael Schmidt, Paul Farley, Carol Ann Duffy, Simon Armitage, Giles Goodland, Fiona Sampson, James Fenton, Philip Gross, Christopher Ricks, etc. It will be interesting to see how this plays out. And oh - what does British mean in this context? Anyway, let's hope it does well.
However, to truly reach the heights of the American series (there are other versions, say, in Ireland, and Canada, much younger), the guest editors will have to be stellar. An equivalent level of varied names would be: Geoffrey Hill, Patience Agbabi, Wendy Cope, JH Prynne, Craig Raine, Don Paterson, Alice Oswald, Michael Schmidt, Paul Farley, Carol Ann Duffy, Simon Armitage, Giles Goodland, Fiona Sampson, James Fenton, Philip Gross, Christopher Ricks, etc. It will be interesting to see how this plays out. And oh - what does British mean in this context? Anyway, let's hope it does well.
Comments
Sorry, but I think that would be a fatal way to proceed. Not personal; whoever the editor was, he would have the same problem of knowing what and whom he knows and being unaware of what and whom he does not. Poetry is incredibly fragmented; it's well possible to be famous in Birmingham and unknown in Hull. I know a particular set of poets from my teaching, from geographical connections and from certain magazines. So do we all. I wouldn't mind betting that you and I could each come up with 10-20 names that seemed essential to the one thinking of them but which the other did not know at all.
I don't know how the selection will be done for this but I hope it won't just be by the editor contacting people he knows. For the Forward anthologies magazine editors submit, which at least means the editors are potentially looking beyond their own circle of friends. I can't see a better way of doing it.
* 2009: David Wagoner
* 2008: Charles Wright
* 2007: Heather McHugh
* 2006: Billy Collins †
* 2005: Paul Muldoon
* 2004: Lyn Hejinian
* 2003: Yusef Komunyakaa
* 2002: Robert Creeley
* 2001: Robert Hass †
* 2000: Rita Dove
* 1999: Robert Bly
* 1998: John Hollander
* Best of the Best: '88-'97: Harold Bloom
* 1997: James Tate
* 1996: Adrienne Rich
* 1995: Richard Howard
* 1994: A. R. Ammons
* 1993: Louise Glück †
* 1992: Charles Simic †
* 1991: Mark Strand †
* 1990: Jorie Graham
* 1989: Donald Hall †
* 1988: John Ashbery
If the broadness of the church is defined purely by the gulf between its two most dissimilar members, fine, but by any other measure, I don't see how the claim can be made.
Spendid series my arse. It's a logistical and administrative marvel, I'll give you that.
The choices are hardly the'Best', perhaps excepting for the perennial choices of poems by John Ashbery. Nonetheless, the series are 'must buys' and a commercial success.