Update #1

To various lists, all duly labelled as new There was an update #0 but I forgot to notify, so that's now just there, unmarked. Links old and new. Including a new anthology listing: Rebecca Tamás, So Mayer & Sarah Shin, Spells: 21st Century Occult Poetry (Ignota, 2018. Magic seems at the heart of poetry.

Here we are again, happy as can be!

 http://www.modernpoetry.org.uk/index.html
New iteration of the old site - and it was a process, which I have repeated, though with differences. All that was there is still there, still interconnected, but with new URLs (modernpoetry/archive/URL). I am amazed looking back at it at the critical material I had digested and responded to. I don't often feel pride, but I do over that. Not sure I can repeat it, or would want to - and aren't there people somewhere paid academic or librarian salaries to do such things? Well, I guess they're not so so foolish.

I may add more stuff, to include more pointers to what there is at present that's worthwhile. I welcome suggestions. I need suggestions. I need feedback, corrections, updates etc. Please!

The image is the view from the station platform in Bishops Stortford, waiting for the London line (Cambridge line it's a brick wall - say no more!) I hope it gives a sense of what a mess, but yet some promise there. The place I think we're all in.

Links to British Innovative Poetry Sites - checked, updated and even subbed

I've just updated the Links to British Innovative Poetry Sites page on modernpoetry.org.uk. (What else to do this rainy Easter?) Please do communicate all corrections and additions - it is only a partial view. More Favourite Thing lists would always be welcome, too. In the meantime, I'll move to work on the rest of the site, checking & updating the various lists, and I think trying to downplay the historical approach for something focusing more finely on the here & now. And I do desperately need and would welcome all suggestions for additions & improvements to the whole site.

My feelings are to raise the site to a kind of glowing currency over the summer - then possibly leave it as a monument to this point. Not certain; I'll decide when it's all finely polished and resplendent (briefly).

Some Favourite Things Now Thinged

I've now put up the promised page with what lists I have been sent, at http://www.modernpoetry.org.uk/livelists.html. I've regularised the format for titles, given relevant links, and ignored both blatant breaches of the Rules and also the nuances people actually expressed about their lists.

I've added a wordcloud, which has some rather fine arrangements of language (& I shall be invoicing Barque Press immediately). It's also online at http://worditout.com/word-cloud/43923.

So, if you haven't done so (& you probably haven't, have you?), please send me your list, to here, to ukpoetry.net or to peter@greatworks.org.uk.

Some favourite things ...

I'm thinking on the next step in the perpetual renewal of modernpoetry.org.uk. On the Useful Lists for British Innovative Poetry page I always feel the "Excellent Books of Contemporary British Innovative Poetry" is probably defective (more so than the two online listings, which merely need updating). I shall crowdsource!

Can I invite you to send either to ukpoetry.info, as a comment on this blog or to peter@greatworks.org.uk your list of the books/ebooks published in the last 5 years (since January 1, 2006) which have meant most to you (take that as you choose!) in connection with that diverse and fuzzy thing we call Innovative British Poetry. Say up to ten or so titles (+ author, publisher, date). In the interests of probity - not written or published by you. I'll put the lists up on modernpoetry.org.uk as a webpage adjunct to the Lists page, and a collated Top Ten or Twenty on the Lists page. Probably mid September, to give you time to work out the list as you relax on your hols.

If this works, we can do some more lists...

Poetry Readings in London Now Mobile

I've just created a mobile-friendly version of the Readings in London webpage, with the next month's readings, with details stripped down, but all links and crucial stuff like time, place, cost, names still there. It should be readable on any phone able to access the internet. Try it at www.modernpoetry.org.uk/mobilepoetry.html. I've altered the title of the page to Poetry Readings in London: nothing else entitled that, so we'll claim it.

I would really like as much feedback as possible from anyone who uses the page on a mobile or PDA. I'd also be interested in anyone accessing the more web-oriented Poetry Readings in London webpage, which I think ought to be quite usable on many tablet devices, maybe larger PDAs. Both versions have a link for phone numbers, tho' obviously that ain't going to work on anything without a SIM.

I've thought of trying to turn the page into a self-contained App - that seems beyond me at present I'm afraid, and might well need more complicated updating than the present webpages. We'll see. I need to buy the Golden Wonder Book of Easy Web Applications and carefully read it.

But please do respond if you use the pages on anything smaller than a laptop, especially a phone. I fantasise it could even be useful to check locations etc, and to have access to What's On whenever & wherever.

MAINTAINING & DEVELOPING MODERNPOETRY.ORG.UK

1.      Principles

1.1.    General rather than Strict & Particular

1.2.    Aimed at outsider rather than insider audience

1.3.    Clarity of use, language & layout? (may need more exposition on concepts & movements)

1.4.    Accurate, contextualised & reasonably recent info

2.      Resources (to be regularly updated & checked)

2.1.    Links

2.1.1. Magazines etc

2.1.2. Publishers etc

2.1.3. Information sources

2.1.4. Poets’ homepages & blogs

2.1.5. Events

2.1.6. Video & audio? (enough)?

2.1.7. eBooks?

2.2.    Lists of the crucial

2.2.1. Magazines etc

2.2.2. Publishers etc

2.2.3. Information sources

2.2.4. Poets’ homepages & blogs

2.2.5. Events?

2.2.6. Books

2.2.6.1.              Poetry books

2.2.6.2.              Anthologies

2.2.6.3.              Criticism etc

2.2.7. Video & audio?

2.2.8. eBooks?

2.3.    Starting-point

2.3.1. (Does it match requirements?)

2.4.    Criticism

2.4.1. Pointers/approaches  to

2.4.2. Reviews?

2.4.3. More info on poets/bibliographies/intros to …?

2.4.4. Concepts & movements? (some link with History)

2.5.    History

2.5.1. More or less?

2.6.    Readings & Events

2.6.1. Beyond London?

2.7.    Comparable foreign sites?

3.      Developing media accessibility?

3.1.    Readings info on Twitter &/or mobile platform/app

3.2.    Facebook Group

3.3.    Interactivity on site eg forum, comments (= blog format)

3.4.    More images, audio & video