My book Centre and periphery in Contemporary British Poetry, due out by the time this issue hits the stands, deals with the tension, and mutual prejudices, governing relations between the periphery (Wales, Scotland, the North) and the metropolitan centre. It is part of a large-scale project on British poetry since 1960 (now cut off at 1995), currently divided into four volumes, and entitled Affluence, Welfare, and Fine Words. Other volumes are The Poetry Scene in the Nineties, The Failure of Conservatism in Modern British Poetry, and The order in which sounds arrive: poetry as sociology, which I am still working on. I believe the project began in December 1992, and I hope it ends soon. The original plan was to write about every poet of the period whom I admired, but as I got more into issues this proved impossible, and quite a few significant poets just won't feature in this four-part structure. I have written separately about more than 100 poets, of whom about 70 will feature in the books. The Poetry Scene is largely (about 60%) a re-issue of essays which appeared in Angel Exhaust, but the others are not. Centre and periphery includes detailed discussions of Sorley MacLean, Denise Riley, Glyn Jones, John James, Idris Davies, Lynette Roberts, Joseph Macleod, Colin Simms, RS Thomas, and Michael Haslam, with quicker handling of Derick Thomson, Ian Crichton Smith, George Campbell Hay, James Kirkup, and Wilfred Gibson.
the Modern British Poetry Documentation project - progress to date
AD
In spring 1993 I began writing a book about modern British poetry, which mutated, as I dug myself further into the pit, into a project of no fixed limits, but with an overall intention of describing every poet of the period (roughly since 1960) who had written excellent poetry- i.e. a good book rather than a couple of good poems. The core product (possibly) was the Shopping List, which fits into four pages (of AE 15). Products include Fighting over the Shared Imaginary (axed but to be rewritten as a book about Conservatism and Innovation in British Poetry), Centre and Periphery in Modern British Poetry (due out from Liverpool UP in November), and The British Poetry Scene in the Nineties (on this website). I stopped work on the project in February, 1997. Another volume, Poetry as sociology, was begun in about March 1998.