How unexpected – to try to find out about modern poetry by getting the poets, 20 of them, to talk about what they do. Special attention has been given to groups of poets sharing creative ideas with each other, and to regional scenes – much information will be found about poetic activity in Plymouth, Manchester, and Glasgow. Two generations of poets have their say, running down poetic matters from the Cuban Missile Crisis to the razing of Baghdad, from The English Intelligencer to Cul de Qui.

This isn’t a one-volume history of post-War British poetry. Given the mass of writing about the post-War period, Duncan like a footballer, says he must “go for space”. He has selectively gathered unfamiliar information. As he says, “Generally, if you read ten books on recent literary history you do find that they do all say the same things. This makes reading them a wearing experience. I intend to bang on until you complain about me including too much.”

Poetry Wars describes the battle at the National Poetry Society during the 1970s between radicals and conservatives, which had lasting effects on British poetry. Myths and anecdotes about these events have long been circulated, but this is the first detailed account of what happened, based on archival sources, and told by a writer who knew many of those involved.

Poetry Wars describes the battle at the National Poetry Society during the 1970s between radicals and conservatives, which had lasting effects on British poetry. Myths and anecdotes about these events have long been circulated, but this is the first detailed account of what happened, based on archival sources, and told by a writer who knew many of those involved.

Simon Armitage is one of the most compelling figures in contemporary literature, most conspicuously because of his charismatic style, but also because he has brought into poetry an irreverent, streetwise gusto and a kind of knowledge that often seems to come from outside poetry altogether. This book nonetheless shows that he is a considerable intellectual whose key concerns include space and place, and gender.

Stressing the Modern: Cultural Politics in Australian Women’s Poetry is the first major study of women’s poetic careers in Australia. While demonstrating poetry’s significance and popularity as a form for articulating ‘modern’ lives, it traces women’s increasing professionalism, their literary friendships, engagement with modernist aesthetics, their fame, and the backlash.

A treatment of 40 years of British poetry from the angle of time. We watch the wonderful helplessness of new poetics as it struggles to free itself from the chrysalis of the old. We watch the life-cycle of new ideas as they open up chaos, channel it into permanent form, and age into predictability and disillusion. We realise the strangeness of the past and go in to sample lost sounds and exotic shapes.

A treatment of 40 years of British poetry from the angle of time. We watch the wonderful helplessness of new poetics as it struggles to free itself from the chrysalis of the old. We watch the life-cycle of new ideas as they open up chaos, channel it into permanent form, and age into predictability and disillusion. We realise the strangeness of the past and go in to sample lost sounds and exotic shapes.