POST- DYLAN THOMAS AND THE "MOVEMENT"

In the mid-fifties there were many who emulated flowery or romantic language,
influenced by Dylan Thomas and his much praised work. Some were inferior poets,
others were following the trend successfully, opening up new romantic vistas.

Into this scene obtruded an amorphous group of poets with academic and media
influence, presenting the public with largely unadorned language in poetry,
depending mainly on technique without inspirational free motif.

The group was presented as "The Movement" - the inventive words of the editor of
the Spectator. Its followers consisted of D.J.Enright, Elizabeth Jennings, John
Wain, Thom Gunn, Philip Larkin, Donald Davie, Robert Conquest and a few others.
It damaged prospects of young romantic poets coming to the fore when it hit the
headlines. The then young Jon Silkin I remember was deprecatingly referred to in a
national newpaper as "the sun, moon and stars poet".

Its manifesto anthology was NEW LINES published by Macmillan in about 1955.

The minimalist ideas of Movement poets were presented (although some like
Jennings and Larkin had already written with feeling foreign to the rather phoney
agglomerate name of the group.) In the main I think it was engineered and set up by
a few poets who wanted a change of tone and spirit towards plainer speech, and
others were roped in so to speak. The group as a group was short lived, but I think it
did damage.

It was a credit to the late Howard Sergeant, highly eclectic sponsor of new poetry
via his Outposts, and influence - and to Dannie Abse who suggested it, that they
edited MAVERICKS to undo some of the impressions of NEW LINES. The former
tells us that the presented "Movement" attitude was fundamentally anti-poetic

(contd)