New Relations: The Refashioning of British Poetry 1980–94

by David Kennedy

This ground-breaking study offers an expert commentary on the many and wide-spread changes which have affected British poetry in the last fifteen years. From the changing personnel to a new publishing landscape; from youth culture audiences to new subjects and readings, hardly any aspect of poetry remains untouched. David Kennedy, co-editor of The New Poetry , considers many poets critically for the first time, including Armitage, Maxwell, Reading, Bush, Duffy and Boland. Larkin, Heaney, Dunn and Harrison are among the more established poets he discusses. Thematically, New Relations includes a Rough Guide to British Postmodernism, and essays on Poetry and Science, Poetry as Media, and the new marketing ploys. Truly contemporary, wide-ranging, fascinating in its readings New Relations is an essential text for poets and readers.

Genres: Poetry

294 pages, Hardcover

First published December 1, 1996

About the author

Dave is a guidebook writer/publisher turned novelist. He began rock climbing around 1984, which was a “logical” extension of hiking, camping and backpacking since boyhood. After his first article on climbing in San Diego’s back-country was published in Rock & Ice magazine, he created the San Diego County Climbing Guide, which proved extremely popular. Next came San Diego Adventures: Classic hiking, mountain biking and rock climbing. In 2007 he completed and published a second edition of the climbing guide, which vividly detailed over 2,000 routes.

Subsequently, he embarked on a fiction-writing odyssey, producing sci-fi novels and short stories “rather unsuccessfully” in terms of publication. He finally found his proper voice in 2017 when he wrote Ricochet, an intense modern-day thriller about a young female vigilante. Upon its completion, he learned about Acorn Publishing while attending the 2018 Southern California Writers’ Conference and was signed by them shortly thereafter.

David is also an accomplished horticulturist. He became interested in tropical plants called Bromeliads in 2010, which quickly turned into a passion. He is an active member of the San Diego Bromeliad Society, and has won “Best of Show” awards in their annual show multiple times. His Tillandsia collection is considered one of the best in the region. For many years he and his wife Debbie have been chief volunteer caretakers of the San Diego Zoo’s Kent Bromeliad Garden.

Becoming a novelist is the realization of a lifelong dream. David loves the process of storytelling, of waking up each day well before dawn and diving into the art of making words come together in a way that appeals.