Just What Is British Innovative Poetry?

OK. It's a clumsy name. I'd rather call it just Poetry, the artform using language as its medium — with a lot of other uninteresting stuff only pretending to be poetry wiped out of existence. But that's maybe a little too hardcore. It is British because it embraces heterogeneity, hybridity, inclusion and reaching outwards, and is written throughout these islands. Sorry, St George's flag wavers, but these days "English" does not conjure up such important values. It's Innovative because that's it's crucial quality — to remake itself, to remake poetry, to remake our culture. Most poetry floating around this island (particularly this biggest bit of it I'm writing from) is either essentially self-congratulatory (of poet and/or reader), or nostalgic (comments about Englishness can be also be made here). You go (if you let it enchant you, rather than having a healthy and distancing vomit) "mmmm" at the end as you agree to its coy or cute or clever embrace: nothing new, just an over-familiar warm wet place. Innovative poetry makes you gasp in astonishment and surprise. It enlarges possibility. You are somewhere new and freshly alive.

If you want a more academic description of what is meant by innovative poetry, I give one from a very recent anthology elsewhere on the site.

British Innovative Poetry's impulses date back to the 1950s, picking up in the radical cultural movements of the 60s and 70s, maintained by several generations of genuine avant-garde writers, and with, since 2000, an increasing public awareness, both on an institutional basis and a popular basis. I can look back — not to 50s poetry! — but to doings of the late 60s, so I'm probably too concerned with looking backwards to its history. If you're interested, that's dealt with here: How Did British Innovative Poetry Come About? (where I'll refer you to Robert Sheppard's online A History of the Other). More recent developments this decade are discussed in So What's Going on Now?

And what is happening now is a resurgence of readings and other performative events (see Links page readings and other similar events/organisations), and an increase in the number of young poets whose writing comes within our magic phrase (see Links page readings and other similar events/organisations). After many decades of slow cultural and social change (for the better in many areas of widened inclusivity, however disastrous increasing economic and class/status inequalities), there is now more urgency for such change to be more widely embraced and embedded, and the whole constitution of our society rethought and restructured. Most cultural activities in Britain are pitched by either commercial or institutional interests, seeking profits, grants, favourable publicity for themselves or sponsors, or career-building brownie points for the workers and especially managers involved. In British Innovative Poetry a genuine avant-garde and growing grass-roots activity can work successfully together to create a genuine poetic culture of the present and the future.

Let's look at the actual characteristics of the poetry — enough such woolly sounding good intent!

The Typical Features of British Innovative Poetry:

a focus on or acute awareness of poetry as concerned with the process of perception/consciousness/putting into language, rather than on what is perceived or experienced — hence phrases like language-centred, linguistically innovative or reflective, and hence too accusations of "difficulty" or "elitism"", as its concerns aren't just simple ones of recording things and emotions, rewarding the reader with triteness. This language-centredness is crucial: this is the art whose medium is the whole experience of language.

various forms of estrangement effect to enable such focus on language and process, and enforce awareness of the language of the poem itself, eg montage, use of found language, or of vocabulary chosen from a specific (non-poetic) discourse, use of complex syntax that fails to resolve itself.

there may be aspects of following a chosen set procedures or constraints in the composition of the writing — paralleling art practice since the 1960s and with some inspiration from the French Oulipo movement, or also linking with the practices of conceptual art and conceptual poetry.

a sense of self or voice which is fractured, decentred or otherwise not engaged in the old con-tricks of authenticity and personality. These can exist, and can communicate — but please not simply and never taken for granted: confidence tricksters thrive.

there may be also aspects of performance/improvisation in both the writing and the delivery of the texts, springing from:
- an inheritance in performing (any!) textual material, coming from the neo-dada roots of the London-based avant-garde ("sound poetry");
- links between avant-garde poetry throughout the period since the late 60s and improvised music;
- the establishment more recently of the academic study of performance writing and the practice of art writing;
- an increasing overlap with highly successful but previously separate other, entertainment-based, performance poetry world of poetry slams, open mics and stand-up routines. As audiences for performed poetry have increased and matured, this element has grown stronger;
- so over all improvisatory formal creativity and experimentation rather than following traditional forms and patterns — hence linguistically innovative, or avant-garde, are good words to use.
dissemination through small scale institutions, establishing their own traditions, genealogies and alliances. You will find the online presences of these listed on this site of course. Some major starting points for information are listed as resources, lists and other foci of information. More specifically:
- publication (largely) by specific small presses, often using print-on-demand digital technology, or specialising in high level book design, or on the other hand maintaining a punkish lo-tech aesthetic (mainly online publishers & magazines etc listed on British & Irish online magazines, e-publishers etc — mainly paper publishers &c on largely print publishers and magazines;
- the importance of readings and other performative events, as a means of getting the poetry out, and as part of poetry's performative nature, and for social interaction — establishing a scene;
- including a number of festivals, bookfairs and conferences (sometimes often within an academic setting but usually very open and on-restrictive);
- and support increasingly since 2000 within a small but not insubstantial number of University Departments (often including creative writing programmes). These demonstrably attract and engage young people. There are potential problem — for British Innovative Poetry to become totally or even largely naturalised to an academic environment would doom it. But so far things have been largely beneficial to the enterprise, and the very nature, taken seriously, of "creative writing" should be atropaic to such a fate. The more major problem may be the very destructive pressures operating within the university system, which may mean with switched priorities and financing such courses may not have a long future.
- OK, some of these are now large and well-established institutions (though of course the whole economic base of HE is precarious and depending upon spreading precarity). It must be declared The National Poetry Library, though certainly representing the whole spread of poetry within England, has for many years had librarians working there who are active innovative poets, and this shows in its events and coverage.
a commitment to not just narrowly literary innovation but more general cultural and thus social innovation. This aspiration, prefigured maybe by the infamous photograph on the cover of International Socialism of Andrew Crozier as angry demonstrator, is beginning to be matched by the social composition of the Innovative Poetry "Community" (rather "communities"). Through the 90s I gained the distinct impression of aging stars playing to aging and dwindling audiences. Yes, I probably missed the real excitement going on — but it wasn't as exciting as the 60s, 70s or even the 80s, or indeed, the 2010s are proving to be. The scene tended to be the bunch of old white blokes in an upstairs room in a pub, and an audience it attracted did not require many fingers to enumerate (and who all knew each other & the attractions). Well, old blokes can't help what they are, but it's pleasant and hopeful to have other people in the room, of mixed ages, of mixed ethnicities and backgrounds, of mixed genders and sexualities. Many poets have been involved in serious attempts to build into the practice of the innovative poetry communities awareness of feminist issues, of gender/sexuality issues, of multicultural/postcolonial issues, as well as more obviously political issues post the Occupation years. How to balance such commitment with a commitment to formally radical, innovative and language-centred poetics is the challenge we are all taking part in, I believe — on the evidence of my ears and eyes. These issues are discussed in So What's Going on Now?

to end, voice has become important — not as replacement of the more impersonal writing strategies this list started with, but as a supplement (thank you, M. Derrida). Impersonality can readily be switching on the default notbotheredness about who is speaking because it's always the ruling voice: otherness to that has to be marked, and sometimes forced into voice. This when done with full awareness is increasingly important. There is an "I" always in poetry: it is a linguistic construct equally as a social, philosophical or psychological construct. As all great poetry does, this poetry, our poetry, explores this potent nexus of language, consciousness and world that is "I"/"Other".