THE MOVEMENT AND THE GROUP SIR,—Mr. Douglas Hill can come
out from under the bed: the 'doctrine and orthodoxy' of the Group which so much frighten him are figments of his own imagination. If the mere mention of an association of poets hadn't sent him into a tizzy, he would have looked for proof before he wrote. And where, in- deed, is the proof to support his assertions? If any- where, it must lie in the poems written by those who attend the Group's meetings. But the striking thing about these is their variousness. If you add to the names already mentioned by Philip Hobsbaum in his letter those of Nathaniel Tarn, Taner Baybars, Zuffikar Ghose, Alan Brownjohn and Jean Symons (all of whom either attend the Group regularly or have done so in the past) you have already covered an immense range of poetic style. The Group has also welcomed, and continues to welcome, many other writers, all violently independent.
You can only develop an orthodoxy, much less impose it (Mr. Hill's verbs and Mr. Hill's italics), if you maintain a closed shop. This is something which the Group has never done—Mr. Hobsbaum already said this, but let me, as the current chair- man, repeat it. In fact, in the course of nine years, the Group has probably turned over its total mem- bership about three times. Opinions have been correspondingly fluid. I may add that I don't think that anyone who was seriously interested in the Group's activities has ever been excluded—though the fact that the Group meets in a small private house and is paid for out of the chairman's own pocket does put certain limits on its hospitality. Perhaps Mr. Hill would like to come and see us for himself?
But, from the conclusion of his letter, I suspect this invitation will be unwelcome to him. In our complicated, crowded, urban society he still hugs to himself the illusion that good poets are romantic Ishmaels—or 'mavericks' as he prefers to call them. My own view is that a maverick is only a cow.
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