Most importantly, however, anthologies are symptomatic of the fact that no one can say with any certainty either what poetry is or what is happening in it. Once, everyone could agree that poetry was T. S. Eliot or Anne Sexton or Robert Penn Warren. This is no longer the case and explains why anthologies are always the cause of such bitter and heated controversy. There is always at least one argument to be made by someone that a particular anthology is not truly representative. This writing, which emerged between 1985-2000, has never been gathered into an anthology before.
Foil represents a long overdue survey of a submerged high-risk culture.
Even without the word 'experimental', terms like 'poetics', 'sounding', 'excavate' and 'submerged' tell us that the work anthologised in Foil is broadly non-mainstream. Indeed, 'submersion' and 'burial' are common tropes in anthologies of similar work. At the same time, Johnson seems determined that Foil should be as unlike other poetry anthologies as possible. The cover of the book, with a large white cross in a red circle, seems more akin to CD compilations of dance music. We are already, then, entering the country of paradox, but Johnson seems to revel in discontinuities.