New British Poetry (2004)
New British Poetry is a 2004 poetry anthology edited by Scots poet Don Paterson and American poet Charles Simic.
In his preface, Simic wrote: "To make it as current as possible, Don Paterson and I decided to include only poets born after 1945 who have had at least two books published. Aside from that constraint, our plan was simply to read a lot of poetry and pick out poems we like."
In a review of the book, Zachariah Wells writes that the editors "favour taste over tact, to exclude work from that school of opaque hermeticism known variously as 'experimental,' 'postmodern' or 'avant-garde' poetry. This is a conscious decision, made explicit by Paterson "
Paterson, in his "passionately opinionated" introduction, has a defense of mainstream poetry:
Poets included
The volume includes work from 36 poets from England, Scotland, and Wales :- Gillian Allnutt
- Simon Armitage
- John Ash
- Sujata Bhatt
- John Burnside
- Robert Crawford
- Fred D'Aguiar
- Peter Didsbury
- Michael Donaghy
- Carol Ann Duffy
- Ian Duhig
- Paul Farley
- James Fenton
- Mark Ford
- John Glenday
- Lavinia Greenlaw
- W. N. Herbert
- Selima Hill
- Michael Hofmann
- Kathleen Jamie
- Alan Jenkins
- Jackie Kay
- Gwyneth Lewis
- Roddy Lumsden
- Glyn Maxwell
- Jamie McKendrick
- Andrew Motion
- Sean O'Brien
- Alice Oswald
- Ruth Padel
- Don Paterson
- Peter Reading
- Christopher Reid
- Robin Robertson
- Anne Rouse
- Jo Shapcott