EXHILARATING
NEW VOICES FROM THE LAST TEN YEARS The
New Generation list, precursor of the 2004 Next Generation Poets promotion, was
launched in 1994 with the kind of fanfare not usually associated with poetry.
It was well received: it gave poetry a public profile that it had long been denied,
and introduced all those represented to the wider audience that they deserved.
Several of the poets have since become some of the best-known names in the country:
Simon Armitage, Lavinia Greenlaw, Don Paterson.
Ten years on, the Next
Generation Poets promotion aims to build on the strengths of its predecessor.
But it also establishes differences. This time the list contains poets who have
published their first book within the last decade, regardless of age (in 1994
the poets had to be under 40). It also reflects the diversification of poetry
itself: the continuing growth and authority of non-metropolitan publishers like
Bloodaxe, Carcanet and Smith Doorstop; the widespread acceptance that we live
in a culture of poetries, rather than one with an agreed centre.
Everyone
involved in choosing the poets for the Next Generation felt that these differences
were signs of health. Inevitably, some of those we have included will take no-one
by surprise: Paul Farley, Sophie Hannah and Jean Sprackland have already made
distinguished reputations for themselves. But we were especially struck by how
many less widely-known poets were writing poems of real quality, which merited
much broader attention. The isles we live on are full of noises -lyrical noises,
satirical noises, intelligent noises, reflecting our time with exceptional energy.
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would be asking for trouble to say that we were living in a golden age of poetry.
But equally clearly we are in the midst of something unusual. Why? Is it just
a coincidence, or a result of long-established traditions? Or does it have something
to do with the pleasure in diversity? With the higher public profile that poetry
now enjoys? With the flowering of Creative Writing workshops -workshops which
have managed to avoid producing a deadening consensus about what makes 'a good
poem ',and which instead revel in variety?
Whatever the answers, they
leave us in the happy position of having a wealth of poetry to enjoy. They also
mean that our list of twenty could easily have been extended - and that some of
the missing names will themselves be sorely missed. The consolation is knowing
that while the brightest beam of attention will fall on the Next Generation Poets
themselves, those around them will also profit from the campaign.
The
Next Generation forms a group which is linked by certain practical considerations,
but which is most sharply distinguished by difference. They will continue to refresh
our ideas about what poetry is and can do. All of us, readers and fellow-writers,
will be their beneficiaries.
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