Living in History: Poetry in Britain, 1945–1979 (Edinburgh Critical Studies in Avant-Garde Writing)

Challenging received ideas about the British Poetry Revival, Luke Roberts presents a new account of experimental poetry and literary activism. Drawing on a wide range of contexts and traditions, Living in History begins by examining the legacies of empire and exile in the work of Kamau Brathwaite, J. H. Prynne, and poets associated with the Communist Party and the African National Congress. It then focuses on the work of Linton Kwesi Johnson, Denise Riley, Anna Mendelssohn and others, in the development of liberation struggles around gender, race and sexuality across the 1970s. Tracking the ambivalence between poetic ambition and political commitment, and how one sometimes interferes with the other, Luke Roberts troubles the exclusions of ‘British Poetry’ as a category and tests the claims made on behalf avant-garde and experimental poetics against the historical record. Bringing together both major and neglected authorships and offering extended close readings, fresh archival research and new contextual evidence, Living in History is an ambitious and exciting intervention in the field. Cover Half Title Series Page Title Page Copyright Contents Acknowledgements Dedication Introduction: Living in History Part I 1. Possessing the Landscape: Kamau Brathwaite in England, 1950–1955 2. Lovely, Flaring Destruction: J. H. Prynne, Charles Olson, Edward Dorn 3. The Avant-Garde of Their Own People: Poetry and Exile, 1959–1975 Part II 4. Driven Out of the Town: Homosexuality and the British Poetry Revival 5. Living in Feminism: Denise Riley and Wendy Mulford 6. Yout Rebels: Refusal and Self-Defence 1970–1979 7. Grave Police Music: Anti-Carceral Poetics 8. Fear of Retribution: Anna Mendelssohn Coda: The Kind of Poetry I Want Select Bibliography Index