New British Poetry is a 2004 poetry anthology edited by Scots poet Don Paterson and American poet Charles Simic.
In his preface, Simic wrote: "To make it as current as possible, Don Paterson and I decided to include only poets born after 1945 who have had at least two books published. Aside from that constraint, our plan was simply to read a lot of poetry and pick out poems we like." [1]
In a review of the book, Zachariah Wells writes that the editors "favour taste over tact, to exclude work from that school of opaque hermeticism known variously as 'experimental,' 'postmodern' or 'avant-garde' poetry. This is a conscious decision, made explicit by Paterson [...]" [2]
Paterson, in his "passionately opinionated" [2] introduction, has a defense of mainstream poetry:
The volume includes work from 36 poets from England, Scotland, and Wales (not Northern Ireland):
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ISBN 1-55597-394-9 (paperback)
256 pages