So it turns out that not only is all innovative poetic activity in Manchester confined to the universities (see here), but those universities aren’t even in Manchester (see here). And it also turns out that we should be giving poetry back to the people. In time for Christmas, perhaps.
otherroom.org 
I intended to respond to the original post but couldn’t really get my thoughts in order then.
My impression of the Guardian article when I first read it was that it was a lot briefer than it actually is. But on re-reading it a couple of times it gets no less superficial. That’s probably because it’s quite unfocussed. It doesn’t really attempt to pick out poetry from fiction writing, performance from magazines, or what exists on paper from what happens online. Nor does it look more widely at Greater Manchester – although it carelessly lumps Salford with Manchester, making only a passing reference to the fact. Some of this is probably due to pressures of space, but it means the article’s almost meaningless for people with no knowledge of Manchester, and irritating for people in the area.
As for Neil Astley’s article, I find it utterly bizarre. It’s going to take time to formulate any kind of a response. However, I like the Jackie Kay quote he includes, “poetry makes us think about who we are”. If I’d handed that in at school I would have been told to go away and write something with an actual meaning. I also like the idea of ‘academic strongholds’, it conjures images of JH Prynne strapping on armour and riding out to challenge Seamus Heaney. Actually, I’d pay to see that.
A couple of points do leap out, Astley bemoans the dependence on anthologies, and although the article is from 2006 Bloodaxe don’t have a spotless record on this in recent years. And if he seriously thinks that Bloodaxe aren’t among ‘Poetry’s dinosaurs’ then I’d tend to disagree with him.
Just some initial thoughts. If I have time I’ll try to come up with a more in-depth response, but it would be good to see what other people have to say.
Don’t think you should take this article too personally, especially as it states “While the institutions are important, however, live and grassroots writing is where Manchester really comes into its own”.
I am speaking as myself here, not as a representative of The Other Room.
What I objected to was the implication that “postmodern avant-gardists” (which, if we are going to use labels, would broadly describe the kind of writers we champion at The Other Room) are only to be found in Oxford and Cambridge University and the further implication that this sort of writing is part of the “problem” of poetry being disconnected from “the people”.
Firstly, innovative poetry is not some sickly hot-housed orchid that would wither and die if exposed to the air outside a university quadrangle. Our own series and other series like Openned in London, whilst having links with academia individually through some of the organisers, are very much their own entities. We receive no formal academic support, have no formal academic association and, as anyone who has seen our amp in action will testify, no funding.
Secondly, the work produced by “postmodern avant-gardists” is actually what a fair number of people want from poetry. Our own audience in July of this year for p.inman and Tina Darragh, two writers that could both be described as “difficult” showed just what an appetite exists for writing that is challenging and ambitious.
(TJ)
Not only are we not really here, it seems we were never here. I would have posted this sooner if I’d got round to reading the weekend Guardian before now. In a review on Saturday Blake Morrison reviewed Fiona Sampson’s A Century of Poetry Review.
Now given that things were fairly eventful round there in the 70’s you’d think there might be plenty of opportunity to mention the British Poetry Revival, Bob Cobbing and so on. Apparently not. The closest he comes are the following:
Controversy also surrounded Eric Mottram in the 1970s, with his radical Anglo-American poetics. Which comes as an aside in a discussion of Muriel Spark’s editorship, and
Several editors of the Poetry Review, including Mottram and later Peter Forbes, strenuously avoided little-Englandism, and there’s a reasonable showing of Americans and Europeans here, including Brodsky, Ginsberg, Ashbery and Primo Levi.
And that’s your lot. Maybe this is reflective of the contents of the book, I can’t find a list of contents and don’t propose buying a copy to find out.