A takedown of young, accessible female poets is brave. But remember, Keats and Auden were first met with as much bewilderment as praise
O poetry! What will we do with you? You’re in the headlines again for the only reasons you ever are, ie the wrong ones.
This month the poetry journal PN Review published a takedown of Hollie McNish and the spoken-word poetry scene (and of me, as McNish’s editor, in an efficient sideswipe). The debate about whether hugely popular poets such as McNish, Kate Tempest and Rupi Kaur deserve the support of the “poetic establishment” spilled out into the wider world.
Spoken word poetry might fail by Watts’ own favoured house rules, but it has its own code by which it deserves to be judged
Related: Poetry world split over polemic attacking 'amateur' work by 'young female poets'
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