topics: |  poetry | english | reference | anthology

Excerpts

The phrase ‘in English’ is no mere neutral description, but signifies a
complex, violent and still bitterly felt political and cultural history: some
contributors question the division between poetry in English and other
languages, and rightly transgress it; for others the historical role of the
English language in shaping the culture and consciousness of poets is itself
the main theme. [Intro, p.1]

The trajectory of the century – of the English language and its poetry – is
from a predominantly bipolar axis to an increasingly decentred
heterogeneity. The country in which the English language originated had
already ceded the leading role to America in the modernist era, and by the
end of the century its current poetic production has little influence on
the rest of the Anglophone world. 2

In the twentieth century more people spoke English than in the whole of
previous history, and more people wrote poetry than in the whole of previous
history.