SIR,—Never having regarded myself as a particularly sinister character, I
am somewhat appalled to find I am branded in your columns by John Tripp as the arch-plotter behind a 'very loose grouping' (of poets) 'based on the weekly Tribune.' This is the only deduction I can draw from his statement, since I, and I alone, am responsible for choosing the poems which are published in Tribune (and getting the brickbats for my choice) and I, and I alone, am responsible for inviting those who take part in our regular poetry readings. If some of them are known to each other already—even read together— or if others have become friends following our discussions, that does not seem so surprising since the whole purpose of our readings is to get to- gether people interested in poetry. I fail to see how that makes us into a 'faction,' As well as the five names mentioned by Mr. Tripp, the following have accepted invitations from me to read at Tribune meetings: Bernard Kops, Nathaniel Tarn, Jon Silkin, Philip Hobsbaum, Taner Baybars, Robert Nye. Martin Seymour-Smith, Alan Brownjohn, Shirley Toulson, Anselm Hollo, John Smith, Ivan White, Jenny Joseph, John Horder, Brian Jones, Robert Morgan, Bryn Griffiths and Pablo Fernandez of the Cuban Embassy. I have been and continue to be in touch with all these. Anyone who can dream up a group, loose or other- wise, around these strikingly diverse and refreshingly independent individuals must have been going a bit too hard at the beer in those saloon bars and off-beat parties that we shall all have to avoid in future if we do not wish to be typed.
am afraid that my friend John Tripp is talking a right old load of rubbish. Might I respectfully suggest that the editor of the Spectator now closes this correspondence? Then we can all get back to what 1 always thought we were supposed to be doing: writing, reading, listening to and learning about poetry.
222 The Strand, WC2
ELIZABETH THOMAS
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