British Poetry since 1945 is a poetry anthology edited by Edward Lucie-Smith, published in 1970 by Penguin Books, with a second and last edition in 1985. The anthology is a careful attempt to take account of the whole span of post-war British poetry, [1] including poets from The Group, a London-centred workshop that Lucie-Smith himself had once been chairman of, following the departure of founder Philip Hobsbaum.
While the first section, "Sources," includes older poets such as Robert Graves, John Betjeman and Dylan Thomas, the second section "New Voices" includes Seamus Heaney, and also Liverpool poets Adrian Henri, Roger McGough and Brian Patten, who at the time were not accepted by mainstream critics (although they were included in the best-selling The Mersey Sound anthology from 1967).
Lucie-Smith wrote in the introduction:
The evidence seems to be in favour of the notion that British poetry is currently in a period of exploration, and that it is not in the thrall of any dominant figure, or even of any dominant literary of political idea. It is for this reason that I have cast my net so wide, and have chosen to represent so many writers.
The first edition of the anthology was reprinted several times. A revised edition appeared in 1985; it omitted some poets and added new ones. The new sections recognised the increasing influence of the Northern Irish and "university" poets.
A. Alvarez - Kingsley Amis - George Barker - Patricia Beer - Martin Bell - Francis Berry - John Betjeman - D. M. Black - Thomas Blackburn - Alan Bold - Alan Brownjohn - Basil Bunting - Miles Burrows - Charles Causley - Barry Cole - Tony Connor - Iain Crichton Smith - Peter Dale - Donald Davie - Lawrence Durrell - D. J. Enright - Paul Evans - Ian Hamilton Finlay - Roy Fisher - John Fuller - Roy Fuller - Robert Garioch - David Gascoyne - Karen Gershon - Henry Graham - W. S. Graham - Robert Graves - Harry Guest - Thom Gunn - Michael Hamburger - Ian Hamilton Finlay - Lee Harwood - Spike Hawkins - Seamus Heaney - John Heath-Stubbs - Adrian Henri - Geoffrey Hill - Philip Hobsbaum - Anselm Hollo - Ted Hughes - Elizabeth Jennings - Brian Jones - David Jones - Philip Larkin - Peter Levi - Christopher Logue - Edward Lucie-Smith - George MacBeth - Norman MacCaig - Hugh MacDiarmid - Roger McGough - George Mackay Brown - Louis MacNeice - Barry MacSweeney - Derek Mahon - Matthew Mead - Christopher Middleton - Adrian Mitchell - Dom Moraes - Edwin Morgan - Edwin Muir - Jeff Nuttall - Stewart Parker - Brian Patten - Sylvia Plath - Peter Porter - Tom Raworth - Peter Redgrove - Jon Silkin - Stevie Smith - Bernard Spencer - Jon Stallworthy - Nathaniel Tarn - Dylan Thomas - D. M. Thomas - Anthony Thwaite - Charles Tomlinson - Rosemary Tonks - Gael Turnbull - Vernon Watkins - David Wevill
The following poets in the first edition are not in the second edition:
Paul Evans - Spike Hawkins - Anselm Hollo - Barry MacSweeney - Stewart Parker - Rosemary Tonks
The following were added:
David Constantine - Douglas Dunn - James Fenton - Tony Harrison - Michael Longley - Medbh McGuckian - Andrew Motion - Paul Muldoon - Tom Paulin - Craig Raine - Peter Scupham - C. H. Sisson - Ken Smith - David Sweetman - George Szirtes - R. S. Thomas - Kit Wright
The Movement was a term coined in 1954 by J. D. Scott, literary editor of The Spectator, to describe a group of writers including Philip Larkin, Kingsley Amis, Donald Davie, D. J. Enright, John Wain, Elizabeth Jennings, Thom Gunn and Robert Conquest. The Movement was quintessentially English in character; poets from other parts of the United Kingdom were not involved.
This article focuses on poetry from the United Kingdom written in the English language. The article does not cover poetry from other countries where the English language is spoken, including Republican Ireland after December 1922.
The British Poetry Revival is the general name now given to a loose movement in the United Kingdom that took place in the late 1960s and 1970s. The term was a neologism first used in 1964, postulating a New British Poetry to match the anthology The New American Poetry (1960) edited by Donald Allen.
Children of Albion: Poetry of the Underground in Britain, an anthology of poetry, was edited by Michael Horovitz and published by Penguin Books in 1969. According to Martin Booth it was "virtually a manifesto of New Departures doctrine and dogma".
The Oxford Book of Twentieth Century English Verse is a poetry anthology edited by Philip Larkin. It was published in 1973 by Oxford University Press with ISBN 0-19-812137-7. Larkin writes in the short preface that the selection is wide rather than deep; and also notes that for the post-1914 period it is more a collection of poems, than of poets. The remit was limited by him to poets with a period of residence in the British Isles. Larkin's generous selection of Thomas Hardy's poems has been noted for its influence on Hardy's later reputation. On the other hand, he was criticized, notably by Donald Davie, for his inclusion of "pop" poets such as Brian Patten. The volume contains works by 207 poets.
Penguin Modern Poets was a series of 27 poetry books published by Penguin Books in the 1960s and 1970s, each containing work by three contemporary poets. The series was begun in 1962 and published an average of two volumes per year throughout the 1960s. Each volume was stated to be "an attempt to introduce contemporary poetry to the general reader". The series added up to a substantial survey of English-language poetry of the time.
The Penguin poetry anthologies, published by Penguin Books, have at times played the role of a "third force" in British poetry, less literary than those from Faber and Faber, and less academic than those from Oxford University Press..
The Oxford University Press published a long series of poetry anthologies, dealing in particular with British poetry but not restricted to it, after the success of the Oxford Book of English Verse (1900). The Oxford poetry anthologies are traditionally seen as 'establishment' in attitude, and routinely therefore are subjects of discussion and contention. They have been edited both by well-known poets and by distinguished academics. In the limited perspective of canon-formation, they have mostly been retrospective and well-researched, rather than breaking fresh ground.
The Liverpool poets are a number of influential 1960s poets from Liverpool, England, influenced by 1950s Beat poetry.
Alan Charles Brownjohn is an English poet and novelist. He has also worked as a teacher, lecturer, critic and broadcaster.
Philip Dennis Hobsbaum was a British teacher, poet and critic.
The Group was an informal group of poets who met in London from the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s. As a poetic movement in Great Britain it is often seen as being the successor to The Movement.
The Mersey Sound is an anthology of poems by Liverpool poets Roger McGough, Brian Patten and Adrian Henri first published in 1967, when it launched the poets into "considerable acclaim and critical fame". It went on to sell over 500,000 copies, becoming one of the bestselling poetry anthologies of all time. The poems are characterised by "accessibility, relevance and lack of pretension", as well as humour, liveliness and at times melancholy. The book was, and continues to be, widely influential with its direct and often witty language, urban references such as plastic daffodils and bus conductors, and frank, but sensitive depictions of intimacy.
The Belfast Group was a poets' workshop which was organized by Philip Hobsbaum when he moved to Belfast in October 1963 to lecture in English at Queen's University.
Second Aeon was a British literary periodical published from late 1966 to early 1975. It ran for 21 issues and was edited by Peter Finch. A spin-off of the magazine was Second Aeon Publications, a series of booklets, broadsheets and bound volumes that eventually reached 100 in number.
Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.
Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.
Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.
Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.
That part of the United Kingdom called Northern Ireland was created in 1922, with the partition of the island of Ireland. The majority of the population of Northern Ireland wanted to remain within the United Kingdom. Most of these were the Protestant descendants of settlers from Great Britain.