And no one thinks this odd or wrong

British poetry is currently in a rich, interesting state. The one thing wrong with it is that it is not being read. Or not by the people you would think are its natural audience: the culture-minded middle classes. Most people who „did English“ at college, or go to plays and Vermeer exhibitions, do not open a book of modern poems from one year to the next. You would think that enjoying contemporary poetry is part of a full cultural life. Increasingly, since the 1960s, it hasn’t been. The media, who use „poetry“ as a metaphor for anything from Tiger Woods‘ swing to a retro sofa-leg, tend to assume it is difficult, elitist, or „irrelevant.“ Books editors do not need to know anything much about it except big names, and no one thinks this odd or wrong.

Außerdem erfahren wir in diesem Artikel (anläßlich der Verleihung des Eliot-Preises am 20. Januar durch die Witwe des Dichters (?!), daß dieser Preis noch nie an eine Frau ging und daß die englischen Dichter in eine Pound- und eine Eliot-Linie zerfallen:

If you put the books shortlisted for the 2001 Eliot prize into teams, you would find more on the Eliot side (with Bunting as back-up) than the Pound side. You might describe the Eliot group as rationally comprehensible, politically-underpinned lyric, focusing on landscape and society. . / Ruth Padel: Death of the reader, Prospect 1.1.02