SJR,—I must make amends: a poetical maverick is not simply
a cow—sacred cow would seem to be more accurate. Let me try to answer your corre- spondents in a small space. Mr. Robson, for example, says that 'the fact that certain poets with strong individual voices' attend the Group seems to him irrelevant. Yet at least some of these poets acknowledge that discussion has helped them greatly in finding their own individuality. Almost no one could write a poem in a meeting; but criticism and creation are only the two faces of the same thing. As for the 'Mavericks' anthology, It was, as Mr. Robson points out in his own way, an improvisation—blatantly political and almost entirely negative in aim. Robert Conquest's New Lines is, as I believe reviewers said at the time, of higher quality poem for poem. To pass on to Mr. Potts's complaints of rude- ness—far rather my rudeness than his gentility. Must we always let sleeping cows lie? We hold up our hands in pious horror over 'the minor literary racket'; we moan, as Mr. Robson does, that 'the discussions of a group grow too loud and loo public.' I have, it is true, strong views about the condition of ,the poet in our society, and I have tried to find more practical ways of doing some- thing about them than the mild exercise of writing plaintive letters to the Spectator. This does not mean that I want to impose uniformity. I detest it— and it is for this reason, for example, that I must welcome Mr. John Horder's harsh review of my book. I hope he is wrong in what he says, but he has a perfect right to say it, and he has said some of it before at Group meetings.
Finally, Mr. Hill. Of course, I cannot prove that the Group is not the kind of seminar he dislikes. The burden of proof remains with him—and he may or may not get it by coming to Group meetings. My invitation remains open.
EDWARD LUCIE-SMITH
24 Sydney Street, SW3
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