About this Journal

The Journal of British and Irish Innovative Poetry centres on poetic writings appearing in Britain and Ireland since the late 1950s. These varied poetic practices have been described as avant-garde, underground, linguistically innovative, second-wave Modernist, neo-modernist, non-mainstream, the British Poetry Revival, the parallel tradition, formally innovative, or experimental and which have been produced in geographic clusters, such as the Cambridge School or the London School or Morden Tower. However, we are also seeking to represent uncategorised and independent voices that might fall through the cracks between different schools or clusters.

These posited movements were networked with a variety of formal and conceptual poetics, including: concrete poetry; performance writing; hybrid writing; writing that explores the interplay between orality and literacy; Black studies; diasporic approaches; translational and translingual experiments; macaronic writing and hybridisations of the English language.

The Journal recognises that these terms, and the communities of writers and readers they refer to, are always shifting, contested and sometimes controversial. As such, we are interested in a critical and expansive understanding of ‘innovative’ poetic writing, both within and extending beyond the bounds of the particular traditions outlined here.

Latest News Posts
Callie Gardner (1990-2021)
Posted by Scott Thurston on 2023-03-31

Today, we publish Callie Gardner's beautiful essay on Anna Mendelssohn and Veronica Forrest-Thomson. This article is published posthumously, following the tragic loss of Callie in July 2021. Earlier that year, Callie had signed off the final version of their article, and was looking forward to the work being published in its present form. In their essay, Callie generously models ways of reading [...]

Alan Halsey (1949-2022)
Posted by Scott Thurston on 2022-10-29

The Journal is dismayed to learn of the recent passing of Alan Halsey at the home he shared in Sheffield with Geraldine Monk. Alan was an extraordinary poet, publisher, artist, editor, bookseller, performer -- the author of sixteen major collections and countless smaller pamphlets and projects. His poetry is steeped in literary history and philosophical thought but with a formidable wit and [...]