A changing of the guard...?

Whenever I see a shortlist, I always feel the greatest insight can be gained by looking at who isn’t on it, rather than who is.  As a consequence, in light of the T.S. Eliot readings last Sunday, I had a quick trawl through the PBS bookshop for releases in the four quarters of 2024 (the main chunk of books that might have been eligible) and noted that the following significant poets were all absent from the shortlist (among many others, of course): Ian Duhig, Ruth Padel, Niall Campbell, Kathleen Jamie, Rory Waterman, Claudine Toutoungi, Carrie Etter, Jamie McKendrick, John Burnside, Paul Muldoon, Jackie Kay, Imtiaz Dharker, Hugo Williams and Gillian Clarke.

The nature of a ten-person shortlist is that many deserving poets will inevitably miss out. However, all of the above might have hoped for inclusion on the basis of the C.V.s and/or the recent reviews in broadsheets, etc, of their eligible collections.

Some might say there’s a changing of the generational guard at play here, especially in terms of the likes of McKendrick or Burnside, who obtained significant success in this prize (and in the Forwards) in the past. Others, meanwhile, might suggest that the changing of the guard is more aesthetic.

It might well be that tastes are shifting at the top table of U.K. poetry prizes. This doesn’t mean, however, that younger poets are not emerging within a similar poetic profile to those older poets who’ve slipped through the shortlisting net. It simply means their work doesn’t fit with current trends. In fact, several of the poets on the above list are far from their dotage.

I’d suggest an analogy with winemaking. When I first entered the trade, rosés were expected to possess a deep and/or bright pink tone, whereas these days the vast majority of customers demand an onion-skin style. Which style is better? Neither. Both can be ace. Both can be awful. But I do admire the few contemporary winemakers who prefer to continue making their rosés with a bright pink colour despite contemporary fashion, thus staying true to their own interpretation of the genre in the face of lower sales and less critical recognition. And the same goes for poetry.

In short, I’d argue that there’s no actual changing of the guard in U.K. poetry. Several different and equally valid approaches to the genre are co-existing as they always have done. The only movement has been in terms of taste at some major prizes and publishers. And as we know, those tastes will shift again, often in a cyclical pattern. The key thing, as poets and readers, is that we remain brave enough to stay true to ourselves, to trust our own instincts, whatever our preference.