Ben Wilkinson

THE SALT BOOK OF YOUNGER POETS edited by Roddy Lumsden & Eloise Stonborough Salt Publishing, October 2011. Paperback, £10.99 The Salt Book of Younger Poets showcases a new generation of British poets born since the mid-80s. Many of these poets embrace new technologies such as blogs, social networking and webzines to meet, mentor, influence and publish their own work and others’. Some poets here were winners of the Foyle young poet awards when at school. Some have published pamphlets in series such as tall-lighthouse Pilot and Faber New Poets. All of them are working away on first collections. This is a chance to encounter the poets who will dominate UK poetry in years to come. Rachael Allen | Daniel Barrow | Jack Belloli | Jay Bernard | James Brookes | Phil Brown | Niall Campbell | Kayo Chingonyi | Miranda Cichy | John Clegg | Nia Davies | Amy De’ath | Inua Ellams | Charlotte Geater | Tom Gilliver | Dai George | Emily Hasler | Oli Hazzard | Dan Hitchens | ...

THE SALT BOOK OF YOUNGER POETS edited by Roddy Lumsden & Eloise Stonborough Salt Publishing, October 2011. Paperback, £10.99 The Salt Book of Younger Poets showcases a new generation of British poets born since the mid-80s. Many of these poets embrace new technologies such as blogs, social networking and webzines to meet, mentor, influence and publish their own work and others’. Some poets here were winners of the Foyle young poet awards when at school. Some have published pamphlets in series such as tall-lighthouse Pilot and Faber New Poets. All of them are working away on first collections. This is a chance to encounter the poets who will dominate UK poetry in years to come. Rachael Allen | Daniel Barrow | Jack Belloli | Jay Bernard | James Brookes | Phil Brown | Niall Campbell | Kayo Chingonyi | Miranda Cichy | John Clegg | Nia Davies | Amy De’ath | Inua Ellams | Charlotte Geater | Tom Gilliver | Dai George | Emily Hasler | Oli Hazzard | Dan Hitchen...

Like many other poetry readers and writers, I was recently invited to submit my three favourite poetry collections of 2009 to Michelle McGrane's feature on her Peony Moon site (if you missed it, the first of eight installments is here ). And like other readers and writers who also happen to blog from time to time, I thought I'd elaborate a little on these choices, while also offering a few other collections which would have been included on a longer list (of six, to be exact). Carrie Etter 's The Tethers was perhaps the easiest choice - I can't say too much about it as I'm reviewing the book elsewhere, but its poems are so elegant, precise, witty and intense it made for a reading experience unlike any other I've had this year. Full of allusion and yet entirely contemporary, by turns darkly serious and unusually funny - it's lyrical invention, range and ambition make obvious the collection was years in the making. Take the wonderful close to 'The Daught...

Conor O’Callaghan , an Irish writer born in Newry in 1968, is one of those poets who critics may lazily – albeit quite rightly – describe as ‘one of the best of his generation’, though he actually seems to fall on the cusp of two generations. Or at least has fallen short, despite having appeared in seminal Irish anthologies, of major British anthologies and promotions – too young for the New Poetry and the PBS’s New Generation campaign ; inexplicably missing from the Next Gen and falling short of the cut-off point of Roddy Lumsden’s forthcoming Identity Parade – as inadequate as these may ultimately be at fully checking the pulse, let alone establishing the hierarchy of the literature of a given period (history will do that), they still (usually quite rightly) cement reputations, develop readerships, and give a representative flavour of poetry at the time. This isn’t to badmouth these publications or promotions, but to note that given the inevitable parameters, some genuinely talen...