The Empire Poetry League was a British-based organisation founded in 1917,
[Brian Stableford, "Against the New Gods: The Speculative Fiction of S. Fowler Wright", in ''Against the New Gods and Other Essays on Writers of Imaginative Fiction'', Wildside Press LLC, 2009, {{ISBN, 1434457435 (pp. 9-90).] with an effective existence of about 15 years. Initially having a patriotic impetus, and counting a number of leading literary figures among its supporters —
G. K. Chesterton,
Humbert Wolfe
Humbert Wolfe CB CBE (5 January 1885 – 5 January 1940) was an Italian-born British poet, man of letters and civil servant.
Biography
Humbert Wolfe was born in Milan, Italy, and came from a Jewish family background,"Wolfe, Humbert" in Stanley ...
,
L. A. G. Strong
Leonard Alfred George Strong (8 March 1896 – 17 August 1958) was a popular English novelist, critic, historian, and poet, and published under the name L. A. G. Strong. He served as a director of the publishers Methuen Ltd. from 1938 to 1958.
...
and the novelists
H. E. Bates
Herbert Ernest Bates (16 May 1905 – 29 January 1974), better known as H. E. Bates, was an English writer. His best-known works include ''Love for Lydia'', '' The Darling Buds of May'', and '' My Uncle Silas''.
Early life
H.E. Bates was ...
and
A. G. Street
Arthur George Street (7 April 1892 – 21 July 1966), who wrote under the name of A. G. Street, was an England, English farmer, writer and broadcaster. His books were published by the literary publishing house of Faber and Faber. His best-known bo ...
(1892–1966) — as members, it shortly became a vehicle for
Sydney Fowler Wright (1874–1965), now remembered mainly for
his
genre fiction
Genre fiction, also known as popular fiction, is a term used in the book-trade for fictional works written with the intent of fitting into a specific literary genre, in order to appeal to readers and fans already familiar with that genre.
A num ...
.
The League, through Fowler's
small press, the Merton Press, was active in the 1920s in producing
anthologies of regional verse of the
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
, usually tied to a single
county
A county is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposes Chambers Dictionary, L. Brookes (ed.), 2005, Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, Edinburgh in certain modern nations. The term is derived from the Old French ...
. It also, true to its name, published early collections from elsewhere in the
British Empire
The British Empire was composed of the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates, and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It began with the overseas possessions and trading posts e ...
: a 1921 anthology ''Voices From Summerland'' compiled by
J. E. Clare McFarlane in
Jamaica
Jamaica (; ) is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Spanning in area, it is the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean (after Cuba and Hispaniola). Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, and west of His ...
, and a series of ''Dominion and Colonial Verse'' collections. The League's magazine, ''Poetry and the Play'' (initially ''Poetry''), ran from 1917 to 1932, when the League foundered. The Jamaica Poetry Society, formally a branch, persisted into the 1950s.
The work of the League in publishing new poets made few reputations, and Wright was outspoken against
free verse
Free verse is an open form of poetry, which in its modern form arose through the French '' vers libre'' form. It does not use consistent meter patterns, rhyme, or any musical pattern. It thus tends to follow the rhythm of natural speech.
Defi ...
. The most clear exception, to both of those, was the way in which Wright championed
Olaf Stapledon
William Olaf Stapledon (10 May 1886 – 6 September 1950) – known as Olaf Stapledon – was a British philosopher and author of science fiction.Andy Sawyer, " illiamOlaf Stapledon (1886-1950)", in Bould, Mark, et al, eds. ''Fifty Key Figures ...
from 1923; though some have discounted this as more tactical than convinced on Wright's part.
Merton Press
*''Poets of Merseyside - an Anthology of Today'' (1923)
*''Birmingham Poetry 1923-4'' (1924)
*''A Somerset Anthology of Modern Verse'' (1924)
*''Some Yorkshire Poets. An Anthology of To-Day'' (1925)
*''The County Series of Contemporary Poetry I Warwickshire'' (1925)
Fowler Wright Press
*''Sussex Song, an Anthology of Contemporary Sussex Poetry'' (1927)
*''London Pride'' (1927)
*''Contemporary East-Anglian Poetry'' (1928)
*''Hampshire Poetry'' (1928)
*''Wessex Song. An Anthology of Contemporary Dorsetshire and Wiltshire Poetry'' (1928)
*''Contemporary Lancashire Poetry'' (1928)
*''Some Scottish verse: an anthology of contemporary Scottish poetry'' (1928)
Notes
British poetry