| Summary: | A distinctive feature of poetry written in the UK is the attraction to London
as the place of infinite possibilities enhancing mental versatility and emotional
metamorphosis. Aware of its inimitable diversity, numerous poets have explored their
polyvalent relationship with the insular city from the beginnings of ancient Londinium
to the 21st-century metropolis. In the 16th century, Scottish poet William Dunbar
acknowledged the birth of a global hub, “the flour of Cities all” where urban identity
is defined in an exhilarating play of likeness and difference. Five centuries later,
Irishman Louis MacNeice reconsidered the metaphor from a negative perspective,
contemplating the decay of the unique capital drained by extreme materialism and
two worldwide conflicts. As history has established the huge conurbation as a symbol
of strength and continuity deriving from its extraordinary capacity of renewal,
Jamaican-born poet James Berry praises the multicultural capital and its unrepressed
vitality in the Third Millennium.
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