I invite comments & can send a review copy if you’re interested.

The problem with other schools of poetry from the Renaissance on is that they are based on a certain prejudice. This or that is always a defining element. I’m simply saying it doesn’t need to be that way. All styles and techniques are open for use. Reject them if you will, but reject them because they don’t fit in with a particular poem you are trying to write or because you find it difficult to make that technique work for you, but don’t reject it simply because you don’t like it and therefore all poetry that does that is “bad” poetry. There is a lot of bad poetry out there, to be sure, but it’s bad poetry because it is poorly written, not because the poet didn’t rhyme or chose to capitalize the first letter of each line. Those are matters of personal preference, a preference that should be exercised on the basis of educated judgment as opposed to gritted teeth and snarling lips.

To that end I was careful not to read too much poetry but that didn’t prove very difficult because most of the poetry I ran into I found I didn’t much care for. I couldn’t decide if it was just beyond me or whether or not it was simply bad poetry. I accepted that the TS Eliots and Ezra Pounds were just beyond me but it was the poetry of my contemporaries that bothered me, the people who were appearing in the same poetry magazines in which my early efforts were appearing.

Although I never attended any poetry readings – I never knew of any – I held a similar opinion to you but with regards to the small press magazines, that they were only being read by the poets who were in, or trying to get into, them; I certainly never bought a poetry magazine without an ulterior motive. I bought a few, a very few, collections but most tired me. To my mind there was only one poet I liked reading, who I got every time, and that was me. That is less arrogant than it sounds. It’s more along the line of, if there’s no one out there writing what you want to read then write it yourself.

Poetry suffers from the same problem as the short story; it’s hard to produce a collection where all the stories or poems gel. I struggle with my own poetry because although the style is fairly consistent, the subjects are variegated. I agree with your point about genres, it would be much more helpful it I could label the kind of poetry that I enjoy. The idea of a fusion-style where anything goes sounds seems to be more of a problem than a solution. Giving it a name, be it Millennialism or something else, is fine but it doesn’t stop it being what it is, a mish-mash of approaches. It’s like fusion in music, a bit is fine but I always see it as a variety of style each vying for attention. At least if you buy an album of Dixieland Jazz you know what you’re going to get.

I think differences are important. If you think of it as specialisation rather than difference it makes it more acceptable. Tolerance is what needs to be cultivated, the realisation that they are other ways to say things. What is important is that people are listening to someone. Poetry matters but what matters more is that it is heard.