IN 2006, a major essay appeared in the magazine ‘POETRY’, founded 1912  in the USA by Harriet Monroe and first assisted by the knowledge and guidance of the great (if somewhat eccentric)Ezra Pound.
The essay, titled ‘American Poetry in the New Century’, was by John Barr, President of the Poetry Foundation, and on boards of the Poetry Society of America. Barr, a man of business and culture, caused a storm of controversy with his essay, which suggested that Poetry in America (and might I add beyond the USA) has stagnated with repetitious exercises in an imitative modernism taught by a proliferation of MFA Writing Programmes and workshops at Universities.
Barr said writing poetry has become dominated by programmes in ‘careerism’, supported by a network of academic circles and cliques which bestow Fellowships, Grants, and Prizes; and yet contemporary poetry is far less popular than novels, movies, or Pop music.
The reason Barr gave is: “Poetry’s limitation today comes not from failures of craft (the MFA programmes see to that), but from limitations of spirit.”
He went on to correctly state that no one has a ‘duty’ to read poetry; it is poetry which has the responsibility to attract the public through a combination of pleasure and thought on both the level of language and by communicating the quotidian experiences of living in the world.

Penguin Modern Poets Series

The problems Barr raised in his essay had perhaps been envisioned and tackled almost a half-century ago in the 1960s in a preventative manner in England, a nation with a serious tradition of writing poetry and appreciating it. To date, no publishing firm has matched England’s Penguin Books special editions of three contemporary poets per volume in its Penguin Modern Poets Series, aimed at the general reader.
The poets were English-speaking, mostly from England, America, and Canada; the Caribbean was represented by Edward Lucie-Smith’s cosmopolitan verse, and Edward Kamau Braithwaithe’s outstanding original Afro-rhythmic verse. Also some of the unique and exciting American Beat Generation poets like Ginsburg, Ferlinghetti, Corso, Charles Bukowski, Philip Lamantia, and Harold Norse. This neat little series of books made poetry attractive, both by their brilliant abstract covers, and particularly by the ingenious styles of verse within.

The Mersey Sound: Edition 10

Choosing three poets per volume, they surpassed typical anthologies by providing a solid substantial look at each poet with an average of one to two dozen poems, depending on length. One of the most popular in the series was ‘The Mersey Sound’, # 10 of 1967, with three British poets on the contemporary scene: Adrian Henri, Roger McGough, and Brian Patten. The entire concept of Anglo-poetry was redefined by a poetics of experience, often with references to the Arts — music, painting, movies, comics, literature. Lines or sentences heightened our sense of conscience and awareness of behaviour, attitudes etc. The approach to poetry was strategically effective and pleasurable as linguistic mood.
Adrian Henri’s amazing poem, ‘ME’ (If you weren’t you who would you like to be?) simply lists numerous artists he admires, before including himself at the poem’s end. It begins:
‘Paul McCartney Gustav Mahler/ Alfred Jarry John Coltrane/ Charlie Mingus Claude Debussy/ Wordsworth Manet Bach and Blake/ Charlie Parker Pierre Bonnard/ Leonardo Bessie Smith/ Fidel Castro Jackson Pollock/ Gaudi Milton Munch and Berg’ etc.
It goes on to name seventy-one more famous personalities, mostly in art, literature, and music. So where is the poetry in all this? Not in an arrangement of crafted phrases, but in the real lives invoked. If we look into these lives, if we get in touch with the actual works they created, their ideas, they would leave us enormously informed and cultured as human beings. The poet erases his ego by implying the achievements of others greater than himself, and thereby asserts his value as a teacher and custodian of culture.
Roger McGough, on the other hand, often coolly observes where people could be more understanding of each other. In ‘AREN’T WE ALL?’ he writes ironically:
‘Wasn’t a bad party really/ except for the people/ people always spoil things/ room’s in a mess/ and this one left her clothes all over the place/ scattered like seeds/ in too much of a hurry that’s her trouble/ aren’t we all?/ think she’s asleep now/ it makes you sleep/better than Horlicks/ not so pretty when you get close up/ wonder what her name is?/ now she’s taken all the blankets/ too selfish that’s her trouble/ aren’t we all?’
Brian Patten, third in the volume, became a beloved poet of those society often ignores, the solitary, the single, or just a face in the crowd. ‘AFTER BREAKFAST’ is a poem of enormous sensitivity, yet without some grand social message. It begins:
‘After breakfast/Which is usually coffee and a view/ Of teeming rain and the cathedral old and grey but/Smelling good with grass and ferns/ I go out thinking of all those people who’ve come into this room…/Waking this morning I think/ How good it would be to have someone to share breakfast with/ Who will I share breakfast with?/ And always the same answer coming back -/ The rain will inherit you – lonely breakfaster!’  It is the experience of the world which leads to words’ power and effect as poetry. As John Barr wrote: “Poets should live broadly, then write boldly.”