David (WAV) is not being picked on and mocked. I've lashed out in anger at him in the past over ideological matters with which I'm in total disagreement, but the concept of the Re-imagined Village - with all that's implied - and folkloric viewpoints of rural life, of Englishness, of literary and philosophical convention, etc. - has proved to open up a rich mine of topics. For which I thank David for posting it. Whether I like the actual poetry or not is, in this instance, not the point for me.

And thanks to this thread and its multifarious posts, I was able to listen to Michael Hordern reading Monty James's "The Ash Tree" on the way home from the afternoon's expedition through the Sussex countryside to the music shop.

That's the beauty of Mudcat.