Obviously thought she didn't have a chance of winning it this time.

Fiona raises a good point, which sits at the heart of this story: which is that we are all of us (to coin a phrase) in it together. All corporate art sponsorship sullies our hands as far as that goes - Corporate Social Responsibility - either we take some of their tainted money, or they keep all of it. And most of our pensions (those of us who even have one) will have been invested in businesses most of us would not approve of. Our household goods have been made in factories we couldn't bear to visit.

These things are just fact. What any of us chooses to DO about it is another matter. Alice Oswald has sprung onto the Zeitgeist and made a stand. And she;s got us all talking, which is great.

Now that she's done it, it seems so perfectly in character as to have been inevitable, somehow.

It'll be interesting to see what happens next.

This puts the other shortlisted poets on the spot, and the prize is less interesting without Alice Oswald as she was such a strong contender. It may well be that financial institutions investing in hedge funds sponsor other prizes too, but that would presumably mean she would also steer clear of them - even if the majority wouldn't. I wonder if any shortlisted poet has dropped out of the T S Eliot Prize before. The discussion raised by this also makes me realise I should be more aware about how my bank is using my money, so that's a good thing too. Alice Oswald is making us think about more than arts sponsorship by this move, which says something about one of the roles of the poet.

A most thoughtful post Adele. I think this issue, together with the recent revolt at Poetry Society agin Fiona "job for life" Sampson shows that the worm is finally turning after 20 odd years of poetryin the uk becoming more organised, professional and business-like. getting into bed with hedge funds is the logicl final step on that journey.Personally I think we should be turning away from this obsession with gongs, prizes and professorships that has degenerated into nothing short of a racket dominated by a sneery (and poeticallylimited) cartel of chums.

Alice is an unlikely rebel (always seemed to have a Head Girl quality about her) but right now sheand John are hero material.

Reading the report of the two poets withdrawing their candidature for the TS Eliot Prize because an investment bank/ hedge fund has offered sponsorship to the Poetry Book Society for the administration of the prize, I am moved to offer these observations. This is second public fracas involving the two principal institutions concerned with poetry,the other being the Poetry Society earlier this year. And it is almost impossible now to avoid the thought that money and politics have become more important than poetry itself for those involved in the mainstream of the art - ie, the poets and publishers who make-up and participate in, those two institutions. With regard to the Poetry Book Society, the Arts Council, in withdrawing its regular grant aid, appears to have arrived at the conclusion that the Poetry Book Society has lost its way. So, though poetry's institutions are not serving poetry well any more, it should be pointed out that the wealthier poetry publishers also have funds managed by investment banks. And one must suspect, too, that the two poets involved will have bank accounts.

Anonymouse, I don't really see why the PBS would 'be no more'. The PBS seems to manage income and expenditure very well and has a viable business model. If it would 'be no more' then there must be an expense to its operation that I'm not taking into account so I'd need to see where their shortfall in cash before I could answer you well.

The membership deal is generous, but publishers like me also support them by providing the books at a much bigger discount than any other bookseller asks us for. When the 2,000 plus members of the Poetry Book Society get their seasonal choice, the publisher has signed an agreement to provide those 2,000 plus books at just over £2 per copy. This barely covers the cost of printing, means we have to go into the 'book club' clause of our contract because it doesn't allow for the normal royalties of 10% of cover price to the author without us going seriously into a loss. As a publisher we do submit to the PBS and support them by negotiating with our printer to make this possible without us running at a loss. From what I can see, even the generous deal to members (and I joined in order to support them after they lost funding)means a mark-up on the exceptionally low price given by the publisher, and a guaranteed 2,000 plus sales per season. Added to this there is the online sales site - Bookdepository.co.uk has lower prices and free international postage and they pay us the full amount any other bookseller does. So, from what I can see, the Poetry Book Society has a viable business model and I applaud them for it. I continue to support them as a member and as a publisher. I'm sure they're very nice people, as you say, and deserve their jobs. But bringing in the idea that the PBS would close and good people would lose their jobs over it is a bit unfair, I think, as a way of saying Alice Oswald shouldn't stick to her principles. Many struggling poetry publishers would welcome a guaranteed 2,000 plus sales per season at this kind of price mark-up but poetry has always depended on a large number of people working for no income. Poetry isn't exactly a job because poetry can't pay for itself, so there are many people working in poetry publishing without an income. The PBS may have a lower income due to the loss of funding, but it does have a good source of profit. There may be something I don't know about their finances that means some type of expenditure represents a high loss that needs sponsorship to balance it.

Adele,
I'm only speculating here, and for all I know they do run at a profit, but I just speak as someone who works in the charity sector myself and who is still extremely lucky to have a job. The organization I work for, though not a literary charity, has to continually justify its existence, but it's one that I and my colleagues work for because we care about it and believe it provides a vital service. I concede that the PBS is different because it's essentially an online bookshop as much as it's a charity, but if you look at the way the book trade is going, and also recognize how specialized a bookseller they are, I would guess that they need that extra funding, and hence why they have accepted funding from Aurum Funds. I do, though, accept your point that you sell to them at a generous discount so taking up some of the slack and giving your support. It's clearly a mark of the support and pragmatism of people like you that they have survived as long as they have. I think though that it's very important to recognize the difference between a publisher, which is a business, and a charity, which is for the most part only as resilient as the belief that people and organizations with a great deal of capital have in it.

However, you are completely right that this is a separate issue, and I agree that it's noble of Alice Oswald to stick to her principles and therefore potentially forfeit quite a lot of what she sees as ill gotten cash. However, I'm just trying to justify the PBS because they're getting caught in the crossfire. I think that J Hardy makes a valid point that the poetry world and the world of finance can no longer be seen as entirely separate, by necessity, but that shouldn't devalue how we view poetry or our appreciation of it. I just don't think it does, to be honest.

We at the PBS are mystified by this stream of invective and poorly-informed comment about the organisation, so perhaps I can just put a few facts on the table. We are glad to have Aurum's generous support for the T S Eliot Prize, which is in the long tradition of support from the financial sector which has kept afloat prizes such as the Man Booker.

We are a charity which means not for profit, so of course we have balanced the books with income from book sales and memberships, and from ACE. This is no different from most charities, which usually have a commercial arm. The Choice books which go to all full members are bought at a flat price but for other books we have a discount which is of course less good than Amazon's or The Book Depository's. Publishers welcome the additional promotion their books get from being selected by the PBS. Poets, as we saw when we lost our funding, are mostly immensely supportive.

Our job is to promote poetry and get it to as many readers and book-buyers as we can. No publisher has to sell books to us and no poet is forced to be on the T S Eliot Prize shortlist, that's their concern - although it's a pity that two more poets are not benefiting from the promotion of their poetry that the T S Eliot Prize offers.

As to our general situation, it is of course difficult for the PBS to survive without ACE funding. Under great pressure we are doing our best to find support from elsewhere and to come up with a new way forward, but this kind of mindless attack shows only ignorance about what the organisation does. We see our job as being to support poetry and that is what we are doing.