In contrast to the poets of The Movement whose traditional forms and conventional themes reigned from 1945-1960, a new popular poetry rode in with the 1960s, devised by poets who spoke to a mass audience, rather than an elite group. The demands of this audience, however, tended to impose consumerism rather than critical standards, and much of the poetry has aged like the fashion and slang of the era. The new poets who followed in the 1970s and 1980s seemed precociously adept, but usually succeed within rather narrow limits of technique and attitude. Poets in Ireland, Northern Ireland, and northern England, however, avoided the pitfalls of popular verse; theirs was a poetry rooted in a local culture of race or religion, but not addressing it directly. Each group is represented in this two-volume set.
89 entries include: A. Alvarez, Dick Davis, John Fuller,Tony Harrison, Seamus Heaney, Geoffrey Hill,Ted Hughes, P. J. Kavanagh, Brendan Kennelly, Richard Murphy, James Simmons.