Current Poetry and the Wild Animal.

Abstract

(Transcript of an informal lecture given at an ELLA Seminar at James
Cook University, 14 July 1973)

I think that our current poetry has a certain anonymity about it. There is very much good poetry being written and as it is not contained within the thumping, bumping syntax directing a G.K. Chesterton's "Don John of Astria ... etc", it
is often necessary to look below the column of a poem to ascertain the author's name before credit can be ascribed.

However, I will not accept, on these premises, that current poetry lacks an identity. Rather, it has so many faces that writers' names become a bore to register. Instead the anonymity of the crowd contains the fascination - the variety of faces. The various individual styles of writing.