The English Intelligencer (Firm)

'The English Intelligencer' appeared 36 times between January 1966 and April 1968-roughly once every three weeks-and was circulated by mailing list to a varying number of English poets. (The fluctuation was between 25 and 65 names.) There was always a hard core of a dozen or so, and these were the poets who gave the magazine its consistency. This intensity of activity was in itself an important fact of English poetry in the 1960s. But, in addition, this hard core of contributor-readers included many of the most active and interesting younger English poets, whose work continued to develop, and who found 'The English Intelligencer' an important contributor to the growth of their poetic consciousness.

'The English Intelligencer' was originally conceived as an attempt to draw together various English poets whose work was thought of as "avant garde," who, for instance, were strongly aware of contemporary American work-these included the poets variously associated with Migrant, the Resuscitator, and Prospect, as well as more isolated individuals such as Tom Raworth, Lee Harwood, Jim Burns, and Tom Pickard-and to provide them with a common meeting point. There was no initial editorial line beyond the selection of poets to circulate the Intelligencer to. The editor, who at the time was associated with the American poet Tom Clark in bringing out the first issue of the Wivenhoe Park Review, felt that such a peculiarly "English" project entailed producing a second magazine of an entirely different character to that of the W.P.R., and the free availability of a mimeograph machine gave him the means to do so. It is likely that the Intelligencer was partly the inspiration for Tom Clark's Once series of magazines: both were produced on the same mimeograph, and they are roughly identical in format.

The function of the Intelligencer as it had been originally conceived was never realized. The magazine was actually run-down and brought to a halt between December 1967 and April 1968 when it became apparent that a) the size of its readership had become unwieldy, b) it had various levels of readership involvement, and c) those most closely involved felt that the pattern of exchange that had been established had become stultifying.