The Next New Thing in Poetry?

Todd Swift makes some salient points about the state of poetry discussion in the UK on his blog Eyewear, in relation to the BBC 2 Newsnight media coverage of Daljit Nagra, whose first collection, Look We Have Coming To Dover!, (you can look and listen on Faber's site) is being published by Faber and Faber on 1st of February.

Todd describes how the panellists on the programme practically slavered and slobbered over the idea of a new poet that seemed 'different' to what had gone before, which begs the question where has poetry been for the last while? What about Seamus Heaney et al other events poetry-wise in the UK?

I'm not denigrating Daljit Nagra's collection - and neither is Mr Swift - it's more a lament for the inability of the general media to generate a wider debate that is based on what is good about contemporary poetry, raising contemporary poetry's profile, rather than seize upon the next-big-thing in poetry and worry it like a rottweiller with a particular juicy bone.

After all, juicy bones tend to either get crunched up to get at the marrow, or buried and possibly forgotten about, by those pesky 'meja dawgs'.

As for me, well, I guess I will be getting a copy of Daljit Nagra's first collection and see what all the fuss is about! ;)