British Poetry

Filigree typically refers to the finer elements of craftwork, the parts that are subtle; this Filigree anthology contains work that plays with the possibilities that the word suggests, work that is delicate, that responds to the idea of edging, to a comment on the marginalization of the darker voice. Filigree includes work from established Black British poets residing inside and outside the UK; new and younger emerging voices of Black Britain and Black poets who have made it their home as well as a selection of poets the Inscribe project has nurtured and continues to support.

‘This book includes some of the greatest of our poetry. I hope that it adds up to a new way of thinking about who we have been, and who we are now.’

This collection of original essays focuses on new and continuing movements in British Poetry. It offers a wide ranging look at feminist, working class, and other poets of diverse cultural backgrounds.

From Tottel's Miscellany (1557) to the last twentieth-century Oxford Book of English Verse (1999), anthologies have been a prime institution for the preservation and mediation of poetry. The importance of anthologies for creating and re-creating the canon of English poetry, for introducing ‘new' programmes of poetry, as a record of changing poetic fashions, audience tastes and reading practices, or as a profitable literary commodity has often been asserted. Despite its impact, however, the poetry anthology in itself has attracted surprisingly little critical interest in Britain or elsewhere in the English-speaking world. This volume is the first publication to explore the largely unmapped field of poetry anthologies in Britain. Essays written from a wide range of perspectives in literary and cultural studies, and the point of view of poets, editors, publishers and cultural institutions, aim to do justice to the typological, functional and historical variety with which this form of publication has manifested itself - from early modern print culture to the postmodern age of the world wide web.

This collection focuses on British poetry from the Georgians to the Second World War. The introduction provides the framework for the articles which follow by considering the question of the relation between poetry and society as it appears in the work of F.R. Leavis, T.W. Adorno and Antony Easthope. Written by experts, the essays cover poetic movements and individual authors, both mainstream and neglected, and address the difficult problem of making value judgements while situating poetry in its historical context.

Introduction -- Contemporary British Poetry and Enigmaticalness -- Continuing 'Poetry Wars' in Twenty-First-Century British Poetry -- Committed and Autonomous Art -- Iconoclasm and Enigmatical Commitment -- The Double Consciousness of Modernism -- Conclusion.