In the late 1970s, in response to the number of foreign poets being featured in "Poetry Review", Mottram was removed as editor of the magazine; his editorial practices being seen by the Arts Council as "a treacherous assault on British poetry", according to Mottram's preface to his section of the anthology, "the new british poetry". At the same time, the Arts Council set up an inquiry that overturned the result of the Society's elections that had once more brought in a council dominated by those sympathetic to the Poetry Revival.