The Cambridge School, Like it or loathe it, what do you think

The Cambridge School is still a contestable term. Many writers living in Cambridge don't see themselves as part of the framework of a Cambridge poetics: avant-garde, transatlantic, owing a debt to the USA more than perhaps Europe. It has a long legacy and deep-rooted connections to the Black Mountain Poets. It seems hardly worth denying that there are a wide range of shared practices amongst many writers living in Cambridge, but does this make them a school? If it does, why isn't The Cambridge School as widely regarded and written about as the New York School? The movement has had several generations, and has a wide diaspora amongst the British avant-garde centres. I've published a lot of it, it sells well (though it's in decline now), travels well, and has that zealous scholarly underclass one might regard as a fan base or readership, but it can seem to resist readership and is hostile to both assimilation and explanation, no hostage to Marketing's pressure to seek cohesion, commodification, consequence. Indeed some of my most tricky moments in publishing have centred on working with the scene, but it's a scene that pays huge dividends and is an important part of the British poetic landscape. But it's suffered for want of a voice capable of drawing its strands and adversities together into a compelling (and recognisably true) story.

Drew Milne has from time to time expressed interest in writing about the movement — if it is a movement. So what do people think here? Where does it register on your antennae and should we be proud of an internationally regarded movement or should we continue to ignore it?

In my view, I think it's now over. I think, for history's sake, that when Andrea Brady and Keston Sutherland left, it began to decline. Sam Ladkin pulled off some memorable moments with some great conferences, but at this distance this now looks like a finale and not a change of management.

I think anyone wanting to understand British poetry needs to have a passing knowledge of this scene (if not an abiding obsession). What do people think?

Well, it certainly registers on my antennae! I'm not sufficiently au fait to say whether or not they are a distinct school apart from other Brit LangPo practitioners, or even whether the idea of school is helpfuI. Some have more in common with people half way round the world than they do with people round the corner. Nor can I say why it's not written about more. I can well believe it's better known abroad, especially with the internet - it's classic long tail.

I'd go further - it's not just a question of understanding "British poetry", but of having a better understanding of poetry.

I'd be interested in seeing an anthology (not necessarily confined to Cambridge), something that takes off from Conductors of Chaos. It would be good to have a readable introduction that could guide the uninitiated into reading LangPo - though that would of course be anathema to the school! And some more critical essays. Many otherwise intelligent people are bewildered by it all. It's something that can put potential poetry readers off the art altogether.

Back in the early nineties I was in a workshop run by Stephen Rodefer. I've just blogged about it (rather superficially) in my covert slum here, rather than clog up the forum.

I first read the anthology "A Various Art" sometime soon after it came out, in the '80's. It's a very good, if heavily male-oriented, anthology that first introduced me to John James, Veronica Forrest-Thompson, Andrew Crozier and the like. I don't know how much it influenced me at the time; but just knowing there were alternatives to the Larkin-Craig Raine-Heaney mainstream excited me. Ultimately, my interest in the New York School sort of took over, but I came back to them, and now there's lots of things I like about them.

Some of the recent poets like Andrea Brady and Keston Sutherland still haven't got through to me; but there are other streams of the British Poetry Revival and after that have. Bill Griffiths, Alan Halsey, Geraldine Monk, Micheal Haslam I find endlessly fascinating. Robert Shepherd's gargantuan Twentieth Century Blues is recommended if you like a challenge, and some of Alen Fisher. I find them less refined than the Cambridge poets, a little rougher round the edges perhaps.

I have an interest, sometimes obsessively, but mainly tangentially, in the British Poetry Revival, including the Cambridge School, which essentially dates to my contact with Barry MacSweeney's work (and person) approx. 1998-2000 and then subsequently with David Caddy (a poet who doesn't really fit into any 'camps' but whose knowledge and passion for BPR poetry is infectious).

Some of the names that have attracted me include Ric Caddel, Eric Mottram, Bill Griffiths, Allen Fisher, Basil Bunting. I've never been that into Prynne and my reading of other key Cambridge school poets like Andrew Crozier, John James and even (later) John Kinsella is pretty limited. However, I find myself most comfortable in the suburbs, if I may, of the BPR and post-avant scenes. I find downtown slightly too daunting. This year I'll be publishing some work by younger poets associated in some way with that scene, including Jow Lindsay and Steve Willey, who really impresses me. And I like Sean Bonney's work too - Blade Pitch Control Unit is awesome. There are a number of poets from that scene whose work I want to read more of: Lee Harwood, Tom Raworth, Geraldine Monk.

I'm currently reading Don't Start Me Talking (Salt), which is very interesting indeed, although the tone is sometimes too exclusive and a little snide. Peter Barry's book Poetry Wars is also an intriguing potted history which I've enjoyed, although sadly it has probably heightened my sense of the differences, back-biting and general paranoia, rather than giving me a historical perspective from which to pursue a more open and inclusive agenda.

Well, I know I don’t belong to any “school” and never have. “Movement” neither. What happened was that a number of poets got together in the mid-1960s-70s and talked about things (not in Cambridge – Cambridge was just the distribution centre) and undertook various strategies in the attempt to escape from what was seen as the dessicated possibilities of popular 1950s poetry, by recourse to movements in American, and later European poetry and the 1940s in Britain. And we talked and swopped poems and recommended and analysed and so on, more-or-less completely outside of an academic context (and with, incidentally, considerable non-professional and working-class input). And that was it. No school, no movement, but, at best, the hope of bringing out individual potential, which may not have been realised until some time later (or, of course, never).

After all, you wouldn’t mistake John James for J.H. Prynne, would you? Or Andrew Crozier for Denise Riley?

What happened after that is another matter, it all got more closely focused, and you could perhaps start to talk about a “school” and about “academic poetry” though there will always be objections from within. But that involved mostly a different set of people.

Nor was there any shunning of publication, or contempt for the market or publicity, merely an insistence that you don’t compromise the poetry by tailoring it to the expectations of the market. I am happily awaiting my invitation to the Aldburgh Poetry Festival, though I know I shan’t get one, and I shall never be in The Poetry Review. You have to accept that if you write in certain ways those people won’t want to know about you. It’s perfectly understandable, and there are masses of others willing to supply what they want. It doesn’t mean you have a contempt for readers.

In decline? I haven’t noticed this.

Sorry Peter, I'm referring to my own publishing experience here. We've noticed this over the past eighteen months, though I think the decline dates back a little longer and may have been gradual. British avant-garde sales have dropped from a high in the early millennium of around 200 units first year sales (for most, not all) to around 50 or so, sometimes less. We just presumed that those buying the avant-garde were buying other poets or other poetry or simply buying elsewhere. There used to be a general market for British avant works (never much taste for it in the USA), that's disappeared for us now. It's making it almost impossible, commercially, for us to publish new avant garde talent. Some books have no demand at all now. It's just all dried up for us, really. I guess that happens.

Thinking about that, it may be a good argument for the State funding of the British avant-garde, or some simpler form of non-commercial publishing (small scale, small press scene, fugitive/adversarial). Have you noticed an increased demand for avant works recently? I'd be interested to know.

You seemed at that point, Chris, to be treating "Cambridge" and "avant-garde" as synonymous, hence the confusion. I don't think the poets I referred to are avant-garde, they are just different, oppositional in some respects, independent, running against the stream. The extremest among them is JH Prynne, and I'm not even sure that his latest mode is best described as avant-garde.

There may well be a decline of interest in the avant-garde, after all some of it is very far from new now. But the term seems to cover a lot of very different forms of writing, including not-writing of various kinds, I don't know how you'd measure its standing. All that most people expect, and get for the most part, is some kind of acknowledgment, a following, occasional messages of enthusiasm and a degree of availability.

There are also some who find small-press publication preferable to getting involved in all the businesses of 'real' publication, like finding you don't fully control your own copyright any longer... or having to wait three years for publication from acceptance of manuscript... etc. In some ways the mimeographed sheets stapled together were less problematic! I think myself one of the best functions of the small presses now is for quick and comparatively limited distribution of small publications which may be collected together eventually in a paperback.

I'd agree with both these observations, though describing Don't Start me Talking as 'a little snide' is overly-generous. It's a lot snide, frankly. The Peter Barry book makes a stronger effort to be less partisan but fails on numerous occasions, unfortunately. Still, both make interesting reading, as we've agreed before. Particularly the latter, which is a far more accessible book for scene 'outsiders' to read. Don't Start me Talking is almost totally bound up with its own tiny circle, hostile to those outside it or who don't quite fit what appear to be fairly narrow criteria of 'avant', and almost requires a Companion to the British Avant-Garde in order to follow its arguments and narratives with any real understanding (though it's clearly intended to be a kind of Companion in its own right). But even then, I fear it would be hard going.

Given the above, it's perhaps not surprising that the Cambridge school (or avant-garde in general, though I accept that these terms are not synonymous) is not as buoyant as it once was. If the key members of a group - or recruiting members, at least - are hostile to outsiders and keep group information closed to such an extent that even those wishing to learn about the group end up falling at the first hurdle, the group is not going to refresh and rejuvenate itself very easily. Ever-decreasing circles is probably the best expression here.

The oddest thing about all this paranoia and back-biting is that poetry is seen as a quiet backwater within publishing, and contemporary British poetry is considered pretty much a closed shop by the majority of people in these isles. Which makes the Cambridge avant scene a double-padlocked cupboard in a closed shop in a quiet backwater.

Aye, I'm conflating here, but I'm thinking of British avant-garde rather than "Cambridge".

You and Jeremy are with decent presses in the shape of Carcanet and Bloodaxe, Tom's a stable mate of yours. You'll know from your own sales how it's all going; I hope it's going better than we're experiencing right now!

I think you're right about that micro scene of pamphlet publication, it's a vital part of the poetry economy. Hope we see more of that.

I think there's a case in what you say, that much of the innovative practices are hard to defend as innovative when the practices were defined over 50 years ago. Silliman's post-avant just hasn't quite registered here, though.

I think I need to do some work to get those British avant sales up again. I'll have a think about that.

Hope you're well.

Best
C

I would imagine universities are the best place for increasing interest and sales in the avant-garde. Some of the writers may be already in place within universities and could, if interested, make a push themselves. I know at least one person at Warwick who might get involved, for instance.

Perhaps a festival that takes place simultaneously in a number of places ... ?

I find much of what Silliman champions to be those very practices you mention. Give him his due - he shouts out for all sorts of non-mainstream poets. But I still think of him as a bit part player in late Langpo who lucked on the moment with his blog.

Let Ron go on gladhanding poets who mimic Olson, Creeley, Wakoski, Koch, whoever (all Americans of course, for the rest of the poetry world doesn't exist for Ron).

Silliman's 'post-avant' is a limited thing. If I was a younger US poet, I would shiver at the thought of Silliman's beardy finger on me.

His review of Minnis - quoted elsewhere here recently - gives it away. He shouts out for innovation, but if it's not his flavour of innovation, he bats it off with faint praise. It should be the measure of any ambitious poet in the US to do something that Silliman disapproves of.

I've been reading the Minnis, which is terrific. I think you'd like Joyelle McSweeney, Roddy. Same stable, great writer. She runs Action Books with Johannes Göransson.

I think Silliman is an important writer (I would, wouldn't I). The blog has its natural prejudices and blind spots (we all have them). I don't think Ron has much of an idea about British poetry. I'm mystified about Minnis though. To his credit he was impressed with Shanna Compton, I think she is marvellous, too.

I see a lot, and I mean a lot, of avant garde writing. Most of it has nothing to do with innovation. It's often very tired and gestural. Faux Garde, you might say. As at any point in history, it's hard to innovate; many opt for a kind of templated set of practices, a tool kit of verbal and visual tics and some torsion. It's often a mistake on the part of the writer, though I put a lot of it down to the cultural impact of some MFAs. Even innovative writing has to have something interesting to say. For very many, it's often the absence of this gussied up that is foisted on the reader. I don't see why we should tolerate that. The real stuff is easy to spot. Minnis is real.

I know, I know; but it works both ways. When The Guardian reviewed Lee Harwood, Carol Rumens sent a very snooty letter criticising it; and a pamphlet by Stuart Calton got a similar snooty letter. Whatever the merits of either book, it's no way to behave.

I feel that there ought to be a better, more accurate term for those poets who are influenced by and practising "avant garde" techniques that are now 50 years old. Even such "movements" as "flarf" are not really doing anything new; just a new form of the old collage technique. Maybe, as a kind of reverse snobbery, we could call ourselves "just poets" and those who are now classified as "mainstream" as "home-movie poets" !

I think the term is "Quarians"- anti-antiquarians.

Still a book worth reading. Some of the interviews are brilliant, illuminating, even - ! - funny. Elisabeth Bletsoe's is a highlight - her interview is prompting me to seek out her work.

The snide bits are off-putting, it's true. In the introduction Allen/Duncan (who? it doesn't specify) implies that 'mainstream' poets are so busy applying for grants from the Arts Council that their poetry has turned into funding application forms. Which, whilst faintly humourous, is strange and hypocritical, considering Nicholas Johnson openly talks about his Arts Council commissioned book Cleave (about the foot and mouth outbreak) in his interview... something the interviewer failed to bring him up on.

Bletsoe's work is well worth reading, Tom. Only her Shearsman book is available. Even the Poetry Library don't have her earlier publications. She'd be in my anthology but her first book in 1993 was just before my cut-off date.

Re the repeated allegation that mainstream poets write dishonestly with prizes, grants and popular appeal in mind, I've yet to find any evidence of this slur carrying any weight for established poets.

But it keeps cropping up among the crowd who demand to define themselves by what they are not. Here's a forthcoming blurb - I shall spare you the blurber and blurbee.

"X to her credit, clearly doesn't give a fig about fashion or prestige. Her poetry is utterly divorced from that unfortunately prevalent tendency to write poems where the words give way to an (imagined) applauding audience at the next prestigious poetry awards."

I sincerely hope the publisher does not use this, which is more likely to repel potential readers.

John and I once had an exchange with a rather famous avant-garde writer who made it clear he/she only wrote poems when he/she was properly funded to do so. It was, frankly, very silly.

What's wrong with that? I never get out of bed for less than £500.

Which is why I am so well-acquainted with my pillow.

I've always wondered where this allegation comes from. I think mainstream poets are probably more likely to enter competitions that have prizes, and I've yet to see many non-mainstream poets as judges of prizes, but that's all.

As for writing with popular appeal in mind, even if that were the case (which I doubt), neither mainstream nor non-mainstream poetry make much of an impact on anyone, so it's a spectacular failure if that's what they want to do. And why it's a bad thing to write in order to be read, I don't know.

Non-mainstream poets do tend to have this romantic notion of themselves as anti-establishment that's honoured more in its inability to accord with reality than with anything else. "You and me against the world" is all part of the mythology for some poets, including me at times; though when I'm being sensible, I'm well aware that the world doesn't really care.