'Why I am Alarmed at the Role the Academic Environment is Playing in Contemporary British Innovative Poetry'

Peter Philpott:

I am not suggesting a replacement of the academic environment, in which indeed so many thrive – I am demanding the diversification of the conditions under which British Innovative Poetry is encouraged, encountered and allowed to flourish. We maintain hold of what we have, as it were, and venture further abroad. We must be grey squirrels, adaptable, robust, unspecialised and rapidly reproducing; not red squirrels, stuck with requirements for very specific habitats, ending up, yet again, merely with relict populations, too small to be viable. Diversification, that’s what I’m after. It’s an evolutionary winner.

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