"I have been making, I think, a familiar literary-historical claim about American poets and the British past: a claim that has no place, as American poets too often have no place, for the British present. Yet its largely sociological explanations seem to me insufficient - though perhaps necessary - if we are trying to explain how these bodies of literature [ie British and American poetries] diverged. American poets who settle in Britain seem to write either in a wholly British line of influence (Eva Salzman, for example, or the late Michael Donaghy) or else in a line that seems, as yet, wholly American (though keep an eye on Carrie Etter)."
Stephen Burt, 'Transatlantic Disconnections, or, The Poetry of the Hypotenuse' (PN Review 190 (36.2): 20-29)
Thanks to Andrew Bailey for bringing this passage to my notice. I'd be glad to understand how the British influence has manifested in my poetry--any takers?
