Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Great Poets of the 20th Century

In his article in Magma, The New Imagination, Lauire Smith argues that Britain produced no great 20th century poets. He claims seven American and Irish poets as “indisputably” great, and suggests several UK poets who come close.

I think all his lists are very open to dispute. I’ve written about it at the Magma blog. If you’ve any comments to make, please get stuck in there. I’m going to write another piece addressing some of the main issues in Laurie Smith’s article. It’s a well written and provocative essay, I think, but that doesn’t mean I agree with him (although I do agree with some of it).

2 comments:

deemikay said...

My biggest problem with it is that it assumes that "great poets in English" must be either from the British Isles (including Rep. of Ireland) or the US.

Other places have english -language poets as well...

Tommaso Gervasutti said...

Is T.S.Eliot maybe considered as an American poet? Not English English?
And Philip Larkin? Is he English? Is he?