New poetries II - Michael Schmidt

This anthology of the work of eight English-language poets from Britain and abroad displays -- as did New Poetries I (1994) -- the variety and vigour of new and neglected talent.

From the earlier volume flowed first collections by Sophie Hannah (The Hero and the Girl Next Door), Justin Quinn (The O'o'a'a Bird), Adam Schwartzman (The Good Life. The Dirty Life), Miles Champion (Compositional Bonbons Placate), Adam Johnson (The Playground Bell), Cliff Ashcroft (Faithful) and James Keery (That Stranger, the Blues). Hannah and Schwartzman have already published second collections.

The poets were all under thirty years of age. Though in New Poetries II most of the poets are young, the book is not inhibited by an actuarial conscience. Furthermore, it re-introduces one or two poets who have begun again in a new way. Contributors include South African Karen Press, the Americans Monica Yuan, Steve Burt and Nicole Krauss, Paul Wilkins from Northern Ireland, Caroline Sylge from England, and others.

These writers together suggest something more potent than a school or movement: their geographical spread, the formal and thematic differences, the accents themselves, are proof of a variety of achievement and potential unusual in introductory anthologies. All add to the resources of poetry as they take their art from their distinctive histories, literatures and landscapes, and from translation. The pleasure of this book is in the something more than promise that each of the poets displays.