the website for innovative British poetry

Welcome to one of the few genuinely creative and uncommercial cultural forms in British culture — innovative or alternative poetry. It is largely ignored by mainstream commercial and academic literary culture — little mention at the Poetry Society, sparse evidence on the shelves of Waterstones or in the arts or culture sections of newspapers. This poetry has a history, indeed complex strands of traditions and influences within it, its own publishing outlets and events, and a lot of exciting and intriguing writing.

As this decade ends, innovative poetry is becoming more confident and more public. But it remains still, almost uniquely in British culture, a thriving, lively art activity that is truly independent — not dominated by money and the market, or the Arts bureaucracy, nor regarding itself as a branch of light entertainment. This is real art, pursued for its own sake, and following its own rules.

www.modernpoetry.org.uk will introduce you to this world, in its online presence.

Use the links below to access the material that interests you.

If you’re completely new to this writing, try the Start Here page, and take it from there.

www.modernpoetry.org.uk is a site still being set up — take this as the beta version. New elements will be added to it though the year, before an official launch early in 2009. Follow the blog You Must Write As If Your Life Depended On It for news on updates and additions.

Start Here New Readers Start Here – an introduction to Innovative British Poetry Websites Useful for Understanding Avant-Garde British Poetry – with detailed comments and quotations Poetry And Me: A Writing Biography – a personal experience of this poetic culture

Useful Lists Useful Lists for British Avant-Garde Poetry – websites, blogs and books Important Anthologies, Literary Histories & Critical Texts Links to British Avant-Garde Poetry Sites (annotated) Quick Links to British Avant-Garde Poetry Sites

What's Happening Readings in London Sundays at the Oto Sundays at the Oto on MySpace You Must Write As If Your Life Depended On It — blog updating changes on www.modernpoetry.org.uk & Great Works

www.modernpoetry.org is an offshoot of Great Works website; "a site for innovative writing: modernist, postmodernist, archaic. It proclaims the need to let a thousand flowers bloom, and rejects any single definition of what writing is. It welcomes alternative poetries and other writing. It proudly offers no retrieval of coherence at a higher interpretative level." Both have been produced by Peter Philpott.