SOURCE: An interview in Ploughshares, Vol. 13, No. 4, 1987, pp. 139-48.

In the following interview, Raine discusses Martianism, the evolution of his poetry, his audience, poetic technique, and literary influences.

Craig Raine's new kind of poetry has yet to reach a substantial audience in the United States. But, if the reviews can be believed, Raine's reputation in Britain exceeds that of any contemporary poet on this side of the Atlantic. Raine's four books—The Onion, Memory, A Martian Sends a Post Card Home, Rich, and his recent opera libretto, The Electrification of the Soviet Union—have prompted an upheaval in British poetic tastes and tempers, but not a single thoughtful article in the American literary press.

Raine's poetry still bears the label—Martianism—pinned to it by British critics several years ago. In Martian poetry, one encounters the world afresh, as an alien might, through unexpected images: "And then Belfast...