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Pullman attacks ACE poetry cuts
07.04.11 | Charlotte Williams
Authors including Philip Pullman have warned the "biodiversity of poetry publishing in England" is in "jeopardy", following Arts Council England's funding cuts to poetry presses Arc, Flambard and Enitharmon.
In a letter in today's Times, the 16 signatories, including Pullman, poets George Szirtes, Kate Rhodes, R V Bailey and Duncan Forbes, said the cuts represented "no pruning back of a few redundant branches in the literary copse; they initiate the felling, in full bloom, of a mature, shade-giving orchard".
The letter said there was a "danger" the cuts to the three "key" poetry presses would go unnoticed, saying the smaller publishers "provide indispensible alternatives to the mainstream lists". It said: "The full 'biodiversity' of poetry publishing in England is now in jeopardy".
ACE announced its new portfolio-funded organisations for 2012-2015 last week, with some previously regularly funded organisations losing funding from April 2012. It also incorporated new organisations into its funding, including Poet in the City, an organisation designed to widen audiences for poetry, and Faber's New Poets not-for-profit scheme.
It follows an exchange of correspondence in the Times between ACE and The Poetry Book Society, which will also lose its regular ACE funding from April 2012.
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It's difficult to disagree with Philip Pullman et al. If I were head honcho at the Arts Council England, I would award a hundred grand a year to the four leading independent poetry publishers:- Bloodaxe, Carcanet, Anvil and Salt. Wealthy commercial publishers like Cape and Faber wouldn't get a bean. I would also insist that each publisher has to publish at least a dozen new British (not Irish or American!) poets per year or lose all their funding. This would quadruple the number of new British poets within a matter of months.(Publishers like Carcanet clearly prefer publishing dead American Modernists to living breathing British poets.) Everyone who knows anything at all about the British poetry scene knows that British poetry editors have been getting away with lavishly state-subsidised murder for decades.
Simon - but it wouldn't necessarily increase the number of readers of poetry which surely is the real point.
Chris - it might! The problem with the British Poetry Establishment at the moment is that it is brazenly and shamelessly elitist and hierarchical. British poetry editors absolutely relish their Simon Cowell-like power to promote their favourites and kick other struggling poets squarely in the teeth. Anything that would make the system more open, democratic, accountable and genuinely responsive to both readers and poets has to be a good thing. The fact that Sir Andrew Motion was dubbed 'the people's poet' after his extremely privileged private and Oxbridge education shows just how far out of touch with the ordinary British public they really are.
Simon
I don't see how Arts Council funding makes poets more responsive to readers - if anything it is likely to make them less so. Also I fail to see how your proposal would make the system more deomcratic or accountable.
Chris
In an ideal world poetry would sell like hot cakes and there would be no need for subsidies. In the real world however, without subsidy, poetry publishers would soon go bust. My point is that the millions in poetry subsidy already publicly donated have been used extremely poorly. All they have done is fund cronyism and allow poetry editors to set up quasi-feudal cliques and cabals and publish their friends and acquaintances with total impunity. Under my proposal Bloodaxe, Carcanet, Anvil and Salt would each get a hundred grand a year on the strict condition that they publish at least a dozen new British poets per year. No system is perfect but at least this would help to administer the enema that the British Poetry Establishment so badly needs.
I'm with Simon. The bulk of the effort should go towards unpublished British residents. Whoever gets the money, this should be a precondition.
The question is, what are we trying to achieve? I'd say two things: 1) keep people writing high quality poetry, and 2) get more people reading that poetry.
On 1), people are always going to write, money or no money. Competitions and the chance to get published will spur people on to increase the quality of their work, and write more.
2) is harder, but a ten-fold increase in competitions, plus web sites where people submit poems and vote for poems would increase interest. Always making sure there were under 14 and under 18 categories.
We need to get people interested in poetry before we ask them to pay for it in the shops.
Riccardo
Many thanks. There are a lot of fine unpublished poets in Britain who never get a look in under the current corrupt system. I genuinely believe that British poetry editors should only receive public money in return for publishing new British poets which definitely is not the case at the moment. Most poetry editors introduce a maximum of a couple of new British poets per year to the reading public and many are 'fully booked' for the next decade. What sort of message does that send out to struggling British poets?
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