I was honoured to present the first Hippocrates Young Poets Award on Saturday, for a poem on a medical subject, to 17-year old Rosalind Jana for a brave, beautiful piece about her treatment for scoliosis of the spine. The award, sponsored by NAWE, was part of an International Symposium on Poetry and Medicine at the Wellcome Centre, organized by Donald Singer and Michael Hulse, and came at the end of an inspiring afternoon.
I started with a quick look around the Wellcome’s brilliant ‘Souzou’ exhibition of Japanese outsider art, created by artists within social welfare facilities (which includes such joyous objects as Shota Katsube’s army of action figures made from the sparkly, multi-coloured twist-ties used for bin-liners; Sakiko Kono’s dolls representing staff who had been kind to her and Takahiro Shimoda’s ‘Fried Chicken Pyjamas’). And then at the conference I heard Cheryl Moskowitz talk about poetry and dementia, Andrew Mcmillan give a moving account of using word-games to help stroke victims, and a series of wonderful readings: Wendy French and Jane Kirwan’s witty, urgent poems about the NHS; Philip Gross, whose last book Deep Field focused on his father’s aphasia and Jo Shapcott, who finished with one of my favourites of her poems, ‘Somewhat Unravelled’, about caring for an auntie:
She says, nurse told me I
should furniture-walk around the house, holding on to it.
I say, little auntie you are a plump armchair
in flight, a kitchen table on a difficult hike without boots,
you do the sideboard crawl like no one else, you are a sofa
rumba, you go to sleep like a rug.
Afterwards the speakers and winners went for a lovely dinner (the Amaretto Cheesecake deserves a mention), and the subject of the health of British poetry came up. To the French delegate opposite me, the day seemed to demonstrate that it was flourishing – in France, he insisted, poetry is something rarified and only of interest to the academe. He was impressed by how in the UK poetry had a place in ordinary peoples’ lives: in healthcare, community centres, prisons. And he’d seen a poem in the weekend papers!
So is British poetry healthy right now? It depends, I suppose, on what you consider the signs of health to be. It was hard not be optimistic yesterday, when I saw the ways in which poetry is being used to increase compassion and understanding; to reach the vulnerable; to bring creativity back into diminished lives. And it feels like a very good time to be a young or emerging poet. The Hippocrates Young Poets Award is just one of many positive initiatives set up recently: a fabulous list of winners has just been announced for the Complete Works scheme and Faber New Poets has opened for entries. And then it’s the Eric Gregory Awards soon and the Mslexia pamphlet prize deadline is approaching (for which I’m doing some online workshops – check out my first, The Idiolect Game)
Courses, MAs, mentoring, pamphlets and prizes for the emergent are all booming – it is a golden age of celebration and support for new poets. The trouble seems to be what happens once you ‘emerge’. The poetry world is still geared towards the model of the (roughly 60 page) book – ambitious writers are encouraged to spend years entering competitions, sending stuff to magazines, performing, work-shopping, etc, with their eyes on the ultimate prize: a publisher signing up their first collection. Except these days, that’s where lots of talented poets are coming to a juddering halt.
Squeezed by the recession and the big buyers, the half-dozen major presses are only accepting one or two or no debuts each year. Poets can end up spending years just waiting for rejections from them. The next step can be to try a small press, but they are nearly all run out of love and at a loss – if you’re lucky enough to accepted by one of them it can mean a more beautiful and better edited book, but also often no advance or book-shop distribution, and little marketing. They also frequently (and understandably) fold. Until its announcement this week that it was ceasing to publish single-author collections, for the last decade many have seen Salt as the best option – they seemed somewhere in the middle, with enough presence to at least have a shot at getting your book into shops and on prize-lists, and were taking on lots of new writers. The news that their poetry publishing will now be slashed to a single annual anthology is terrible for British poets.
I mean, their list is bursting with talent: a whole, brilliant generation. People like Luke Kennard, Antony Joseph, Mark Waldron, Chris McCabe, Katy Evans-Bush, Julia Bird, Sian Hughes, Melanie Challenger, Simon Barraclough, Jon Stone, Kirsty Irving, Amy Key, David Briggs, John McCullough, Tom Chivers, Antony Rowland, Liane Strauss, Amy De’Ath, Sophie Mayer, Tamar Yoseloff, Tony Williams, Anna Woodford, Abi Curtis, Rob A Mackenzie, Andrew Phillips and Tim Dooley (to mention just a fraction). Seriously, where are all these poets going to go? Why couldn’t Salt find an audience for such an embarrassment of talent? The Arts Council seems happy to pour funding into encouraging a glut of aspiring writers, but what exactly are they supposed to aspire to when poets of this quality find themselves without a publisher for their next book?
We seem to be moving towards a model where people are kept ‘emerging’ for as long as possible – preserved in a kind of hopeful limbo, where they can gain lots of encouragement and support, but also spend lots of money on mentors and Arvon courses and MAs and competition fees and retreats. It can take many years for the truth to emerge: that for all their talent and investment, they are unlikely to get a book published, and if they do it will probably disappear without a review or more than a handful of sales.
It seems to me there are choices to be made. One option is for arts bodies to start supporting ‘emerged’ poets as actively as those who are ‘emerging’. Another might be to accept that the days of the physical, 60-page collection are over and find a different model of poetic success.
It’s great that more people are taking up poetry as a hobby or tool for self-expression – enriching their lives by playing with words in hospitals or schools. It’s quite another thing, I think, when a whole industry is built up around selling a mirage. Don’t get me wrong: I’ve been incredibly lucky in my publishers. And I love mentoring people and running workshops; I love discovering new poets. Still, there’s something unhealthy about the current state of poetry if we’re all selling a ‘promised land’ of publication that increasingly doesn’t exist.
Salt’s announcement came with the disingenuous press-quote: ‘There’s never been a better time for poets to write […] It’s an exciting time’. But I’m getting rather tired of seeing the promise of my peers dwindle into disillusionment. Only a few years ago, Salt was publishing the hubristically-titled guidebook 101 Ways to Make Poems Sell, with blurb promising tools to help you ‘keep your publisher’. Its list’s failure to thrive is a symptom we mustn’t ignore.
Reblogged this on Poethead and commented:
From Clare Pollard
Dear Clare,
You are so spot on with your comment about poets being “kept emerging” – I think this is a real problem in our little pond. I am hoping to be running a project next year which will be looking at the changing nature of the writer. I believe there are lots of opportunities to present the work we do in new and unexpected contexts that do not depend on the conventional idea of the promised land of book publication. I’d love to speak with you about this, if and when it happens.
I also agree with your comment on the Salt press release. Regarding my own relationship to the press, I’d long jumped off that particular ship, though the state of the poetry world as it is, my next book is currently sinking to the bottom too.
Tom x
It’s all true. The most interesting thing is that the list of poets you recite above is familiar to me but to almost none of my friends outside poetry. Everybody who reads poetry also writes poetry (or thinks they do) and even those people don’t actually buy the stuff. We don’t expect that only novelists write novels, but the poetic air is now so rarefied, and poetry so inaccessible, that very few members of the “general public” know anything about it, except that it’s all about clouds and daffodils. That’s why presses, quite rightly, don’t waste money on publishing it, and that’s what’s got to change.
Clare,
I think another model, or a supplementary one, is for us—the no-longer-emerging-but-what-are-we-then poets and writers—to help support and establish the frameworks (lit. organisations, presses, events…) for one another. Not in an exclusive way—I wouldn’t say no to publishing someone’s first book or chapbook, and MIEL has done that—but in an intentional & thoughtful manner, as a way to support specifically the work of people who are past the stage you mention where their money helps support the system/the emergence of writers, but not yet, say, Anne Carson or hmmm Simon Armitage. It’s almost as though we are an innumerable, invisible middle class of writers. Surely together we can make things happen for one another? (That’s not to say I don’t think there should be social supports for writers in all places in their lives—including governmental support in the form of bursaries to presses/writers—only that, realistically, it doesn’t seem to happen that way. So what can we do about the situation from here on the ground? Slightly-past-emergence poets’ union?)
I am 100% for making environments that are not the usual/expected ones to find poetry in—beyond the university, beyond the public library, beyond the typical literary journal only bought by writers, beyond even the hospital or prison. Poetry is necessary in these places, and in them the big names are distributed and the emergent emerge. But they are not the only places we can or are charged to bring beauty/difficulty/poetry/our writing lives, and in these other places (shops, offices, unauthorised in public places…) I think our writing has the element of surprise (& delight) on its side.
So much of what you say here chimes with me. Sorry for going on a bit. Thanks for your essay.
Take care,
Éireann
(http://www.miel-books.com)
I wrote on Salt this morning too (http://sonofabook.blogspot.co.uk). I do like Tom’s exploration of alternatives to the printed book, but for many (most?) writers the book is still the gold standard – even though the economics of the trade are against it. Compare housing: home-ownership is still the conventional thing to aspire to, even while market prices and lack of job opportunities render this impossible for many.
Spot on. Well done for bringing this up.
When Arts Council England made its last round of funding decisions, support for writer development was massively increased at the same time that presses like Arc, Enitharmon and Flambard were told their annual funding was to be scrapped, other publishers like Bloodaxe had their three-year funding reduced (while Anvil’s was reduced to a crippling level), and first-rate literary organisations which promote poetry books and readings like the Poetry Book Society and Aldeburgh Poetry Festival also lost their funding. Salt had already been told it would get no further funding.
At the time we and others protested to ACE that there was no point in nurturing new writers if they were cutting or reducing funding to the key presses and organisations which would publish and promote the work of these new writers and all the other poets. It just doesn’t add up. But ACE doesn’t have a coherent literature strategy (some would say it has no literature strategy at all, let alone a coherent one!). Some of these presses and organisations have been able to keep going thanks to short-term funding from ACE’s Grants for the arts scheme, but that doesn’t enable them to plan their programmes for the long-term; and the Grants for the arts solution was a panic measure brought in once ACE had realised the extent of the damage being done by their funding decisions.
But Flambard have gone. Arc’s publishing has been severely restricted. Anvil are struggling. And presses like Bloodaxe and Carcanet have to maintain their current lists with reduced funding as well as being required to keep publishing first collections. Despite the shrinking of Waterstones and the downturn in sales caused by the recession, ACE-funded publishers have to increase their sales with less grant support or they face being cut or having their funding further reduced in the next round of funding decisions. So what you are describing, Clare, fits exactly with what we were telling ACE two years ago, and in the current economic climate in which literature funding has been skewed the way it has, there’s no way that the surviving publishers are going to be able to pick up many of the displaced Salt poets, just as they have struggled to do much for poets who used to be with Peterloo and Flambard.
Poets and others on Facebook have been making all kinds of comments on the Salt debacle, often relating to their own experiences, most of which miss the main point. Salt has lurched from crisis to crisis, but because everyone loves Chris Hamilton-Emery and readers and poets like a lot of the writers he publishes, or published, everyone has been supportive of his efforts to keep going, responding to repeated appeals for sales, setting up readings for Salt poets, and keeping the Salt admiration society going on Facebook and Twitter. What no one seems to have noticed is that the main reason why Salt lost its ACE funding and why its poetry list has just gone up in a puff of smoke is that its business model was never viable except for a small press with a small list and modest sales.
Print on demand isn’t compatible with promoting poetry to a wider readership. You can’t complain that your books don’t get reviewed or noticed if you don’t send out review copies to newspapers, magazines, radio producers and festivals. You can’t complain that your books don’t get shortlisted for prizes if you don’t submit them for all the prizes that are going. You can’t complain that your poets don’t get anthologised if you don’t give copies to anthologists who request them. All that requires running on 100 to 150 copies from your print run to use for promotion. Print on demand doesn’t allow for that. Every book you print with print on demand has the same production cost, whether you sell it or use it for promotion. And once you’ve printed around 400 copies it actually becomes cheaper to print the book conventionally; the more copies you print thereafter, the lower the unit cost of all the copies. You don’t need to pay for advertising (never cost-effective for poetry) but you do have to “write off” a few hundred copies at the run-on cost, which means you have to print conventionally. If you can only afford to use print on demand, you’re never going to be able to promote your books effectively to a readership of more than a few hundred people.
You also can’t complain that your slim poetry volumes don’t sell or that bookshops won’t stock them if you publish them in hardback at £12.95. That Faber model of publishing first in hardback then in paperback is only viable for a publisher with Faber’s marketing, distribution and sales volume to support it. And even Faber have stopped publishing first collections in hardback. And you can’t complain that you don’t sell enough books at readings if you don’t give the poets selling copies of their own books the same discount that you give to the bookshops.
The other thing Salt got wrong was editing, or rather not editing. It used to the case that poets self-edited (or failed to edit) a manuscript which was funnelled into the sausage-machine of Salt’s production line. That put quantity before quality. But Chris finally put that right by bringing in Roddy Lumsden to edit the poetry list, and Roddy has done a superb job in working well with all the poets he took on, establishing a new core to Salt’s poetry list that suddenly felt vibrant and authoritative.
Thanks to Roddy’s selecting and editing of poets, the new Salt list was, in publishing terms, saleable and promotable, but without a sound business model and marketing strategy, the poets have been left up Salt creek without a paddle.
I’ve often wondered about the print on demand model, and whether it really benefited poets. Thanks for clarifying.
Just because one makes use of a digital press structured in a just-in-time (JIT) ordering and manufacturing environment does not make one less of a publisher. Every title (including poetry) my house, Quale Press, publishes is printed by a digital press using a JIT ordering and manufacturing system. For every title we publish, we print out advance copies for the trade press (to no avail), anywhere from 50 to 100 review copies and another 25 author copies. We also have a small amount printed to stock inventory at our more traditional distributor for mainly the very occasional bookstore order. Making a categorical statement that “Print on demand doesn’t allow for … running on 100 to 150 copies from your print run to use for promotion” is just not true. How a house handles promotion and publicity is not tied into how it has the books manufactured. Please enter the 21st century.
I’m going to try to be helpful by saying that I abandoned U.K. poetry when I was 24. I’m saying “U.K.” instead of “British” – “British” is notoriously English when it comes to poetry.
A little bit about me first: at 24 I was an Oxford graduate from a working class council house in N. Ireland, happily reading Sean O’Brien, Gross, etc., and was the recent recipient of a few Arts Council of Northern Ireland awards, was sent to New York, Malta and Italy on odd ACNI poetic missions, all the while, at that stage, writing shorter, sonorous, dark poems – I was set – I could have published – I was Seamus Heaney’s fourth testicle or something; I was Muldoon’s pixie-bitch. At 25, I was given a Yaddo fellowship, subsequently ending up, at 26, at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop on a fellowship. I continued working on craft, wrote longer, more difficult poems with longer lines, started a very specific project that’s ongoing, did well, taught workshops, received further funding, didn’t seek to publish, didn’t seek to rush, and controlled the idea of being “emergent” without what I thought the external pressures of being an out-of-the-closet “emergent” would bring. I worried I’d calcify. My expression wasn’t the way I wanted it. By staying hidden I did the right thing for me in terms of development. I still believe this, but it’s not entirely untroubled by doubt, or the opinions of others that I’ve somehow taken a risk in waiting.
For instance, I just recently sent my work out for journal publication consideration for the first time (mostly in the U.S.). I even entered the Eric Gregory (also for the first time) last October, and knew, even before the result that I found out today, that there was no way in hell that I would get one. I had no divine right to one, obviously, but ultimately was right about being wrong for it, and I was sad to be rightly wrong, but that being right couldn’t be ignored: I got to thinking why I had such certainty that my “home” market would be indifferent to this late 20s work, and why I shudder at the Faber New Poets submission deadline in June. After all, for all intents and purposes, I’m invisible, and rather less by choice at present than a year ago. I used to think that a Faber publication was everything. Equally, in the same breath, used to think how does one compete against the name recognition of the Eric Gregory in the U.K.? Then, more recently, how could I publish without that in a foreshortened market? So, considering the U.K. sends me through a kind of crisis of confidence, I also wanted to start thinking about why that was. It’s not like I’m writing “bad” poetry; I’m just not apparently writing “Acceptable U.K. Poetry”, and that’s concerning. Not for me. For the U.K.
I spent the day considering what relation my chosen path has had with U.K. poetry and the fetishisation of emergence, prompted by this blog (thanks Clare!) and figured I’d say a few things as to what it’s like to be an outsider to that fetishisation (mostly by choice), looking in, but perhaps looking askew, and how the American experience of healthy decentralisation shows a good model for publication going forward, and a good model for developing work.
The state of U.S. poetry is vastly different to that of U.K. poetry – there’s no central recognisable mode of poetry that I can define as “American” – that is thrilling as a writer. Conversely, when Geoffrey Hill talked about the democracy of the difficult poem recently, I found myself in agreement in principle (even if it was expressed in a rather suspect way), but I also found his discussion to be so parochial that it made me see how bottlenecked U.K. poetry has become by the concept of accessibility. Carol Ann Duffy has been tasked with making poetry appreciated again at a time of such profound technological and austerity-led change, and that is daunting. I respect her deeply for that. However, I also deeply distrust her guidance of a rudimentarily accessible poetic response given that a real-world face-on reaction to that change is doomed to such instant anachronism that the face-on post-Larkin nature of U.K. poetry has absolutely no currency as a response, because its answer predates its utterance (if you want to speak like Virilio). So it’s not a coincidence that Duffy’s new book is about the old staple of love, and I really am worried about the lasting impact her stewardship will have on the way U.K. poetry is perceived worldwide – after all, knowledgable, teaching poets in the U.S. have little-to-no awareness of most current U.K. poets, and the answer to that is not self-support during your crying fits, is not the Eric Gregory, is not Faber. It’s actually mass export – many U.S. poets in their 20s are really, really impressive, backed by a largely functional M.F.A. system, supplemented, not guided, by awards (hilariously, the most stylistically-predictable is run by the British Isles’ own Eavan Boland, and its predictability is a kind of joke in most circles), all backboned by a beautiful series of presses that actually have artisan interest behind them (or great e-design), and university support.
It therefore seems like such a boon to have poets pressed away from an oversubscribed press like Salt, a boon to have U.K. poets have to fend for themselves in a world market, instead of being cowardly arse-sitters, which I think has been the real trend. I don’t blame anybody specifically for it, and I’m concerned too by competition, but the real future dinosaurs are those who think that the U.K.’s present voice has anything particular to say when it tells me a story about the refrigerator, or those poor chaps down in Camden who ate a sausage from Tesco, but still had a good time watching “Coronation Street”. I think it’s time to get with it and to stop looking for excuses regarding publication – the whole scene’s a mess. Publishing back into a void won’t help.
Since making this post yesterday I have been informed by Roddy Lumsden and Jon Stone that various issues noted above were addressed by Salt, including giving poets standard discounts on their books, not producing all books by POD, and sending out review copies (some at least but clearly not enough to make enough of an impact), and Jon Stone and Rob A Mackenzie both felt their books had been edited well at Salt prior to Roddy’s arrival. On the other hand, I have also received FB messages from other Salt poets (not posted on my wall) who felt my summary was accurate. However, everyone seems to agree that poor marketing was the major problem, and there we go full circle back to the starting point of Clare’s blog and my response: public funding to nurture new writers being increased at the same time as funding is taken away from presses and other organisations responsible for publishing, marketing and promoting poetry to readers.
It’s also worth noting that Salt was awarded £180000 from ACE in 2005 with the condition it would make selling poetry profitable enough not to require more funding
Indeed. I remember that. It’s a shame. They were ambitious, and any publisher who supports new poets gets my backing.
Reblogged this on The Milwaukee Muse and commented:
A good, reblogged post from Clare Pollard on the poetic plight of finding publication and audience in Britain. Applies to us Yanks, too.
I agree about there being a need for support for post-emerging poets, what form could this take however? If someone hits on a brilliant idea we should try our chances with ACE.
Interesting idea, but what is the definition of a ‘post-emerging’ poet? I’m not clear about this.
Someone with a first collection?
Or someone with a second or even third collection, diligently beavering away at their writing, refining their skills, improving their craft….and running workshops for ‘new writers’?
Someone who’s been on a respected short-list (but not necessarily won a big prize?)
So many people would be included in these categories…possibly the majority of poets in the UK – how could they all be supported? And who would categorically define ’emerging’?
Maybe the main problem is that, in fetishising ‘the next big thing/s’ in poetry, unrealistic expectations are raised in those briefly feted poets. The less glamorous reality is that there are hundreds of ‘mid career’ writers competing for reviews, a few prizes, fellowships, accolades, etc and that book sales for poetry (with some notable exceptions) tend to be modest.
Any thoughts?
Very interesting points here.
Neil, I’ve heard all the points you made before, and recently. I think I agree.
As always it’s about money. If you don’t have the money to hire dedicated marketing staff, you have to focus on far fewer books to market each well.
I liked the hardback Salt books. But then, I’m probably not indicative of the average book-buyer either.
There are lots of programmes for emerging writers. I’ve taken part in a fair few of them (one or two of them cynical attempts to get cash for doing very little and others wonderful opportunities to progress and develop). I did hear there might be strategic ACE support forthcoming for mid-career writers, but I’ve yet to see it. I absolutely think that’s essential.
I run my own press (not even a small press–a micro press really), and a large number of my writers aren’t emerging but mid-career and/or mid-list authors who’ve been dropped. Some of them have been around for decades but can’t get published by bigger presses any more.
I also do the marketing for another press (this one bigger, but still a small press), and many of their writers have much the same story: they were with other (bigger) publishers, but were neglected, dropped, or ignored once they stopped being shiny and new. But oddly, their sales are good enough and they write great books.
I guess it doesn’t help that, compared to other artforms, literature (and publishing in particular) gets so little.
Yes – I think you’ve identified some key problems here.
There are lots of talented mid-career poets who have, effectively, disappeared from public view. Their publishers drop them, maybe because they no longer ‘fit the brand.’ I think you’re spot on when you say ‘They’re no longer shiny and new.’ They may also not live close to places where lots of poetry performing goes on – or they may not want to endlessly self-promote.
In an over-crowded market, good, focused marketing is essential. And I wonder whether some publishers’ (I’m not saying all!) expectations that their writers are constantly self-promoting, through social media, etc, has meant that the publishers themselves do less? – not because they’re, ahem, lazy or anything – but just because the expectation is that all writers are now their own one wo/man marketing departments?
Another thought – I recently met a successful performance poet who runs his own cheeky small press, goes on tour with big names, and sells truck-loads of books at gigs, rather than through book-shops, etc. He takes all the risks of publishing and reaps all the rewards. Of course, in order to do this successfully, you have to have lots of bottle, to be a good performer and not to give a monkeys about the ‘status’ attached to being published by a ‘respected’ publisher. But it is a different model that works very well for some; book sales are in the thousands rather than the low hundreds. The books aren’t ‘edited’ in the conventional sense, but then, not all publishers ‘edit’ rigorously anyway.
Maybe more poets will opt for this route in the future – and then the numbers of frustrated poets bashing on ‘established’ publishers’ doors will decrease?
Catherine, I too know many poets who make money that way too. It’s quite cheap to print your own books now.
Re: self-promotion. It’s a tricky one. Promotion is different to marketing. I’d expect writers to promote themselves, but not necessarily market themselves. I’ve been developing, in between my other freelance marketing duties at Peepal Tree Press, a number of resources for authors who are or are just about to be published. They lay out some of the expectations on both sides.
Realistically, your publisher should support you in organising at least one book launch. They should be willing to book the space, get the refreshments and make sure the books get there. They should also agree with the venue how the event will be promoted and who will do what. This includes designing and printing flyers or posters.
If it’s a local event, you should probably be expected to draw up some kind of guestlist or draw on your local contacts to get people down. You should probably also suggest local media who’d be sympathetic to covering you, the book or the event. Your publisher can then follow these up for you.
Your publisher should also keep an eye out for relevant prizes and submit your books where appropriate. If you spot one the publisher might not have, then tell them.
This is just the tip of the iceberg, but it might give you some idea about what a publisher’s expectations might be.
Might one also expect them to occasionally mention your book or, say, the poetry prizes you have won, on their own social media? Because SOME poetry publishers don’t do much of that, while being assiduous in promoting their fiction lists.
Also, I should add that getting the books to events is a really, really important thing. A publisher should do this above all else.
Unfortunately I do know some authors who claim their publishers have poor track records when it comes to this.
Judi, absolutely! Although I would also expect authors to tell their publishers about these things as soon as possible (you’d be surprised how many authors tell us about events on the day or even after they’ve happened).
I would include events, awards and announcements in a regular newsletter, and via Facebook and Twitter as an absolute minimum. In fact, that takes up a good proportion of what I do: http://www.facebook.com/peepaltreepress.
Of course! you would think that was just common sense, but let’s think who hasn’t been doing that, and wonder why they haven’t been selling enough books.
Judi, I sympathise.
I imagine it’s partly a problem of (wo)manpower. If the publisher comprises just two full-time members of staff, they may not always have time to market and promote as many authors as they’d like. The obvious answer would be to publish fewer books, but some presses behave as though quantity will eventually yield profit (which isn’t necessarily true).
I think it comes back, again, to Neil’s point about sensible business plans. And the manpower issue comes back to funding.
Catherine’s point below, about low poetry sales in general, is probably also part of the problem (there’d certainly be less need for funding if poetry titles sold better). Beyond getting the books into shops or on university courses, there has to be another way of marketing poetry so that it reaches a wider audience.
I met a fabulous young poet the other week who has taken part in poetry competitions, won awards, and performs regularly as a ‘slam poet’. But when I mentioned Sylvia Plath in a conversation with him, he had no idea who she was. I thought maybe it was a cultural/age thing, and asked him about other poets. But his response was that the only poets he encounters are performance poets–he watches their videos and sees them on the stage, but he never sees their work (or anyone else’s) on the page. That, to me, is a worrying sign. If even poets aren’t reading poetry, then what hope is there?
I realise, of course, that I don’t have an answer for this, so I do sound a bit doom-and-gloom. Sorry!
Hi Adam, I’ve had four books of poetry published, over 13 years, by the same publisher, so my remarks weren’t really about my own experiences – I’m more interested in the balance between how a poet is expected to promote/market themselves, and what a publisher might reasonably be expected to do.
Judi, it seems daft for publishers of poetry to piss off their writers and not celebrate/publicise their achievements. After all, the poets are supplying the goods!
But the main problem still seems to be – however much people are blogging, tweeting, Facebooking or whatever – are enough people buying? I write poetry and teach poetry and read poetry. I buy a poetry book a month (including the PBS choice, which I sometimes like and sometimes don’t but hey – you pays your money, etc). That’s 12 new books of poetry a year. I’d buy more if I could afford to. Some of the books are given to non-poet friends for Christmas/birthday presents. These are usually well received, although I can’t say that said friends then become regular purchases of other poetry books.
Some poets rarely seem to buy anyone else’s work – but grumble long and hard that their own sales are low, for whatever reason. Shouldn’t poets support other poets? – at least by buying poetry books for their friends and family as gifts? I’d love to know what other people do/think. Because, despite all the ‘Best/most promising new’ this, that and the next thing – and I’ve been a top 10 and top 20 person myself, back in the heady days of 2004 – most poetry books don’t sell in large quantities.
So either poets aren’t writing what most people want to read – and, in the interests if remaining true to themselves, why should they? – or news of their work just isn’t reaching potential customers. I don’t know what the answer is, but I reckon if we all gave Boots/Argos/Debenhams/Claire’s Accessories a swerve for our Christmas shopping, and chose a poetry book for a friend or relly that might strike a chord with them, that might be a start. I like the Bloodaxe catalogue, personally. Something for everyone, even grumpy people. Pain and guilt-free shopping.
And now I’m off to read my newly arrived PBS choice, and it had better be good…..;-)
Clare, why is it that your options for new poets include no mention of self-publishing or ebooks? I know Kindle isn’t the most friendly format to poetry, but it’s not *that* bad or *that* hard. You have self-published titles, literary and otherwise, flying off the virtual shelves – for everything except poetry. And I see plenty of references here to the prices of books, the dynamics of making a return, without any reference to the earthquake that’s virtually toppled the entire publishing industry. Why do you make no effort to embrace such a liberating development for young poets? If they can work Word and use email, they can publish themselves – on Amazon. That’s all it takes.
[…] volumes I pondered about this in the wake of the publishing house Salt’s decision this week to no longer publish single-author collections of poetry. Leaving aside debates about funding and business models, I could not help speculating what would […]
Firstly, I found this blog post and all the comments really helpful, and really illuminating. I read the post the day it was published, but have been at a conference this week talking about contemporary poetry, so didn’t have time to process my thoughts until now. One thing I can say, is that I think the conference – http://www.ies.sas.ac.uk/events/ies-conferences/Shifting-Territories-2013 – was probably full of poets stuck on the long emerge. I’d also say it was doubly interesting (or difficult, or strange) that many of them, like myself, are in a similar position in academic terms too – post-phd, but not in a full time post yet – with a title, but no fixed role. This made me wonder if the long-emerge is a problem emerging (sorry) not just in the world of poetry, but other worlds where there is a similar lack of funding, lack of resources, high number of qualified practitioners? (Academia at the moment offers a too clear parallel, with many early career researchers stuck in an equivalent limbo). This seems to me to double the problems at a time when academic departments are increasingly focused on the prestige of job applicants – so that too often creative writers hoping to cut it in academia can’t get a permanent job if they can’t move beyond the long emerge.
I won the Mslexia Pamphlet Prize mentioned in the post above, and launched the pamphlet, ‘Shadow Dispatches’ just about a month ago. This has made an enormous difference to me, not least because of how great Seren have been. I entered the competition last spring in despair though, because I’d pretty much run out of publishers open to submissions to send my collection to. I hit thirty with only a shortlisting for a Gregory, convinced I was doomed to complete obscurity because of it. What’s made a difference to me in the last several years is the sense of support and community Eireann mentions, and which she herself has offered to me and many others. Her notion of ‘making things happen for each other’ sounds like it links to Tom’s project, and seems in many ways like the only viable option. But what happens to those poets who have run out of resources to share and build on, during that long limbo, or for whatever reasons can’t reach a supportive community? How do we make sure those who need support the most are in a position to get it?
It’s true that there are many talented and ambitious poets/fiction writers with PhDs in Creative Writing, who then have to compete for a handful of actual jobs in academia. So they get stuck, frustrated, under-employed. Over-supply, under-demand. The long emerge, indeed.
But – is the academy the best place for poetry/creative writing, anyway? I taught for a University for 15 years – (and some of my fiction students went on to get very prestigious publishing deals) – and the University made our whole department, Community Engagement (165 people in all, including admin staff) redundant last year. They demolished the Arts Tower and built a Business School on the site. I suspect there’s a metaphor there somewhere….
We writers took our courses out into the community and they’re thriving. We’re now spared the tedium of academic in-fighting/politics, endless/pointless paperwork and the need to justify our existence among more ‘academically established’ disciplines. Hooray!
Interesting … glad that shift has worked for you. I didn’t specifically mean writers who have taken the creative writing route through academia – there are many of us who are ‘straight’ academics as well as writers. (Personally, my MA was Creative Writing, my PhD Sociology/Eng Lit). For me, its the only job I enjoy as much as poetry, and as important to me. I just thought the ‘career’ trajectory gave an interesting parallel, and wondered if there were other areas developing similarly. I know, for example, that museum and heritage work is becoming increasingly dependent on low or unpaid internships with little hope of most of those interns ever getting a f/t job in the industry. So what I’m wondering is if this problem in poetry is a sign of our times more generally – if, essentially, a whole generation (or several?) are stuck on the long emerge in all areas of life?
Catherine (I’ve only just twigged it’s you, tango queen!), I agree with you. Academia seems, to me, the wrong place for creative writing. I did an MA in Writing for Performance & Publication, and I certainly enjoyed it. It gave me time to write, and I had the freedom to work in any genres or forms I wanted (from radio to stage to page).
It didn’t teach me to write. The theatre angle mean the course stressed narrative structure a lot, which I had already learned from, of all things, my Media Studies A Level. We didn’t go into style as much.
The thing my MA actually taught me was how to fill in applications and plan projects. I learned more about craft and technique from spending time among other writers in creative settings, rather than academic ones. Academia is, as you say, a lot about form-filling and self-justification. This is important if you want to get lots of funding for projects, but not as important if you want to really grow as a writer.
Adam, the tangoing was great.;-)
Polly, congrats, btw, on winning the Mslexia comp – hope the pamphlet does really well and the whole experience continues to bring you joy.
I know some universities provide a good and supportive space for writers – but I feel that the need to ‘conform’ to academic expectations can be quite stifling (especially to anyone who is trying to do something experimental/not easily ‘assessed.’)
And I am, of course, bitter and twisted at the appalling way in which Sussex University ended 30 years of productive engagement with the local community, across a range of creative subjects, in order to pack in more business studies students…..and charge foreign students a fortune.
I’m going to say goodbye to this thread now. My overall feeling is that the problems experienced by ‘still emerging’ poets are similar to those experienced by other writers, visual artists, actors, dancers, and lots of other people in the ‘creative arts’ (and the humanities, museum and library services, etc etc). Times are tough economically and this ridiculous coalition government sees the Arts as some sort of indulgence the country can’t afford – when the reality is that the Arts generate billions in income and exports. I really hope that innovative and imaginative poets, and happily there are many, find new ways to engage the public with poetry – there are exciting projects happening all over the place, so that’s good news – and that more people buy books (because poets are still writing them, and will want to do so). It might mean more self-publishing for those with the bottle and the marketing skills to go down that route, but for the rest of us – maybe the best thing we can do is buy as many poetry books as we can afford and be positive about the achievements of our fellow poets. Better to light a single candle, etc.
Apparently at a war cabinet meeting, it was suggested to Churchill that the whole Arts budget be scrapped in order to save money for the war effort. Churchill replied, ‘Then what are we fighting for?’
All good wishes….
Unpaid/low paid internships/temporary contracts are the norm for an increasing number of graduates of many disciplines. It’s harder for many people to ’emerge’ into a fully realised ‘career.’ My son has a good history degree and MA from a Russell group University and has a temporary job with a charity. There are many, many graduates and not many great jobs.
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