This study presents an episodic history of an epic period in British poetry, when bad times forced political subversion and textual impaction upon its central figures and provisional institutions. In the episodes which cover the Poetry Wars of the 1970s; the centrality of Bob Cobbing as poetry activist and the SubVoicive poetry scene in 1980s London; and the cultural poetics of Iain Sinclair in the 1990s and since; the focus is upon poetic community rather than individuals.