Alan Baker finds The Best British Poetry 2011 too conservative in Stride Magazine.
If you’re trying to pitch a book at a (very large) market of ‘newcomers’ and ‘all creative writing students in the UK’ then claiming that it contains the best poetry is going to be very useful to you. But, motive or no motive, Lumsden’s attempt to brush away the significance of the word ‘best’ is futile, as it will be the defining feature of this series, and will continue to polarise people into those who feel a glow of pride that their work has been accepted in a collection of ‘the best’, and those who indignantly question the concept. The same problem applies to the American anthologies, although there the inclusivity has redeemed the series to some degree; the editors range from Lyn Hejinian at one end of the spectrum to Billy Collins at the other. One test of the Salt series will be whether Lumsden is brave enough to hand over editorship of an issue to, say, Ken Edwards or Peter Philpott or Andrea Brady. We’lll see.
