Futurism can now be seen in the context of the entire century as an important attempt to make poetry at home with the speed and dislocation of modern life. The political influence of Futurism in Italy was considerable and malign, paving the way for fascism, which is perhaps one reason for its neglect. But as a case study of poetry and its relation to society and mass movements, Futurism would repay further investigation. Rather like that map of the body reflected in terms of the amount of brain devoted to innervating it, a documentary-based survey of the century's poetry has a rather different shape to the traditional canonical lists. Pr vert, Neruda, Milosz, and movements such as Expressionism, Futurism, Surrealism, the Beats and the Liverpool poets reflect the times and enact its moods with more vigour than most mainstream verse in English.
American poetry comes well out of a documentary survey.
Its dominant involvement in the century and its poets' freedom from stultifying precedents has meant that from the 20s to Ashbery, O'Hara and beyond American poets have had the pulse of the moment. Clare Pollard , who was first published in Poetry Review at the age of 17, is very much a product of 90s Youth Culture, a culture now so powerful that newspapers like the Guardian woo it incessantly. The American poet Mark Halliday is older but his work triumphantly walks that dangerous line between Ashberian arbitrariness and cute wackiness and never falls off. A section of the issue is devoted to the contradictory vibes surrounding poetry as the century ends. In the midst of so much good news, the demise of Oxford University Press's poetry list is a major shock.