Yesterday morning, instead of settling into a few good hours of research, I found myself lost in the latest hub bub coming out of the poetry world. It started with the announcement of the Forward Prize shortlist and the fact that Derek Walcott’s latest collection was not included, whereas Seamus Heaney’s was. Then there was the statement, as discussed on Tania Hershman’s blog, that too many poetry collections are being published. It ended with my discovering on Carrie Etter’s blog a fascinating roundtable discussion by UK and US poetry publishers about the future of publishing poetry. By the time it was 10.30, the muscles in my hands were tensed into claws and reaching past my third cup of coffee for my computer so I could write what you are reading now.
As some of you know, besides novels and plays, I also write poetry. Quite a lot of it, really. Many have been published in magazines. One collection, the poetry play Dreams of May, was published and has been performed dozens of times. I have just finished a second collection. This does not make me an expert, by any means. I don’t teach poetics in an MFA program. I have never won a prize that anyone has ever heard of. But poetry is something I do and care about, and something I have been thinking about for so long now that I have a certain perspective that comes with time and attention, if nothing else. So here it goes….
Poetry, at it’s best, is the art form that links modern man with his ancestors. From religious recitations of epics like The Odyssey to tomorrow’s slam competitions, poetry is man’s way of finding connections with an intangible past and an inscrutible future. It is also the link between music and language — which, for me, are the two sides of the human heart. Poetry belongs to all of us. I believe every human being has, at one time or another, felt that urge to write poetry. Like the urge to laugh, no human being should be denied the experience. Yet most people do not write poetry and, so they say, even fewer read it. I believe it is fear that keeps people from approaching poetry and it is the fault of “Poets” that that fear exists. Notice, I have put those obnoxious quotation marks around the word because there is and has always been an intellectual snobbery within the poetry community. From a young age we are all taught that poetry is “hard.” “Real” poetry is hidden within a cloud of forms and theories. You have to be brainy to understand it, much less write it. This insidious form of intellectual elitism is rampant in the poetry world and always has been. The fact that I felt the need to proclaim my credentials at the start of this discussion shows how much this still holds true.
Who’s to say that a poetry collection should or should not be published? I think the only person who has a right to say that is the person who decides, for whatever reason, to actually publish it. If someone is moved by a body of work, and believes that others would react the same, and believes it strongly enough to want to put their time and effort into bringing that collection to the public, then – to me – that means the collection ought to be published. Everyone bemoans the fact that nobody reads (and therefore buys) poetry. If the poems themselves were more accessible or more varied or less fearful, than they would be read by a greater number. If poet’s stopped closing the doors on other poet’s work and stopped metaphorically measuring who’s dick is larger, then the poetry world would be healthier, both artistically and financially.
Poetry that demands time and thought not only to write it, but also to read and understand it, is important. There must always be a placefor that sort of work. Very often it is that most difficult sort of poetry that is the impetus for moving the artform forward. But academic poetry (for want of a better word) is not the only sort of poetry that is to be valued. Believe me, I am not so much a republican as to say that any bit of dashed off drivel has a right to be published. Writers who decide to devote their artistic time to the creation of poems need to study and practice as much as any other practitioner in any other field of art. Standards can be maintained and judgments need to be made. But although, for example, the violinistic artistry of a Joshua Bell is very different from that of a Stephan Grapelli, I don’t think anyone would say that one is more correct or of greater value than the other. I believe music has become more comfortable within it’s own skin, more open to its varied styles. Poetry needs to finally, finally, after all these generations of moaning and sniping, get to that same level of acceptance of itself.
UK poetry publishers say that sales of 250 copies of a collection is considered excellent. I’ll end my rant by saying that although I’m sure no one in the poetry establishment has ever heard of Sue Guiney and that they may not like her poetry very much even if they did, I will humbly point out that Dreams of May sold nearly 400 copies in two printings.
That’s really interesting, although Poetry is something I feel I know very little about. I think that is at least partly because I feel if I was going to read it properly it’s something I would need to devote time to, which would be difficult with all my other reading commitments. Maybe one day …
Poetry is something I do and care about too. But what can be done? If there was a way to sell more poetry books I’m sure some enterprising publisher would have a go. Arts bodies have produced expensive reports trying to analyse and fix the issue, discovering that “only four per cent of the total sales of the best-selling 1000 poetry books in 1998-1999 were of contemporary poetry. The Arts Council study identifies Faber as responsible for 90 per cent of the sales … and notes that collections by Seamus Heaney account for 67 per cent of these sales” (staple 54) and that “the gender gap was most pronounced among poetry readers, with women outnumbering men by nearly three to one. This finding was confirmed by research commissioned by the Arts Council of England for National Poetry Day which discovered that the majority of poetry books are bought by women over the age of 45” (MsLexia, 2001).
In 2005 I doodled some notes about Popularising poetry but couldn’t come up with much. The market for serious poetry may always have been vanishingly small. Perhaps poetry-reading has reached its natural level, increasing only as the number of poetry-studiers do. The role of much poetry may have been taken over by prose, pop and cinema. Why buy a 9 pound poetry book with 45 sparse pages when you could watch Inception?
Things aren’t just bad in the UK. In Italy recently, Luigi Manzi suggested a moratorium on publishing modern poetry books. Fabrizio Dall’Aglio replied “frankly I think many publishers (me included) would be in favour”
Read about Chris Hamilton-Emery’s article in the Writers Handbook, 2011, for a bookless vision of the future on
Todd Swift’s blog
On the plus side, there’s a feeling that a promising bunch of new young poets are breaking through – the recent rash of anthologies is one sign. See my post for details.
@litref- I find it a bit amazing that you’re saying that. In Botswana, not known as a literary powerhouse by any means, poetry is where the excitement is and all of the growth. Performance poetry is giving all poetry new life. Perhaps, as Sue has said, it is not written by THE POETS so it is not considered poetry per se, I don’t know but I think the surge is wonderful.
Sue- thanks so much for this post. I, like most people, have written poetry. It is a lovely way to hyper-concentrate your thoughts. I’m not saying it was great, or even publishable, but I do know it was important to me.
Recently, mostly to be part of some friends, I sent a few poems to a local lit mag. I got back a stern lesson on how poetry should be written and could I please get sorted before playing at such a serious task again. I felt chastised and told myself -okay then you’re not a poet. But inside somewhere I felt quite sad. Now I think, Sue, you’ve given me courage to write my sorry poetry, if only for myself. Which was fine in any case.
Also- congrats on the sales. Please, henceforth, refer to yourself as “Best selling writer, Sue Guiney”.
I have to be honest and say that I find poetry more than a little intimidating! In saying that, I found a book illustrated by Art Speigelman which was a poem called The Wild Party written by a guy called Joseph Moncure March and fell in love. If I could find other poems similar then I would definitely read them!!
C x
Helen: And that’s the point. How sad that you feel poetry needs “time to devote to it”. Actually, it takes only a minute to read a poem. I find poetry books the best beach reading of all.
litrefs: Thanks for dropping by and being a part of this! I’ll go check out your post now.
Lauri: I’m always fascinated to hear how differently things are handled in Botswana. But actually, maybe not so much – you say you were chastised. Yes, the more one reads and studies poetry, the better their own poetry is likely to be. But to chastise someone for trying? Really. Just don’t publish it, if you feel it’s not ready — but don’t discourage someone form reading and writing poetry. That’s what I mean! And “best selling author”? From your lips…..
Every National Poetry Day we’re told that poetry’s never been more popular – which is probably true – there’s loads of poetry online, and publishers like Forward Press – “the largest publisher of new poetry in the world; we’ve published in excess of a million original poems since 1989”. And yes, performance poetry – Slams and otherwise – is on the up in the UK. So is the use of poetry in literacy courses and therapy schemes.
But just as Modern Opera goers won’t be consoled by the success of Beyonce, so I doubt whether the Jonathan Cape editor (“There’s too much bad poetry being published, polluting the pool.”) and the Picador editor (there are only 30 poetry books worth publishing each year) are excited by the progress of Forward Press. Elitist? Maybe, but the editors and judges concerned read a lot of poetry, and it seems that even the non-Performance stuff they read doesn’t appeal to them.
Perhaps the upcoming generation of new names will have a wider notion of “poetry” but I suggest you read their work before you decide. I’ve not decided – I’m a small-mag person mostly, so I don’t feel on the side of book publishers or Slammers. But I think that the “intelligent layperson” nowadays might have trouble finding poetry that satisfies them – partly for the reasons that the poetry editors allude to. My (perhaps overly generous) take on what they mean is that given the parlous state of “serious” poetry it’s even more important that the bad doesn’t drive out the the good.
Here are more misc snippets of info that might help you decide who’s to blame. The ACE reports in particular are interesting
Arts Council England has recently produced Thrive! poetry project: strategic development report. A report that dates back to 2000 is Rhyme and reason: developing contemporary poetry. The web site has several other relevant docs too – on performance, etc.
In China, a translation of Prynne’s “Pearls That Were” (only 500 copies of which were produced in England) has sold more than 50,000 copies.
“the wider public, whose understanding of poets is two hundred years out of date and whose awareness of poetry is either a hundred years behind the times or else still stuck in the 1960s”, Neil Astley, “Staying Alive” (Bloodaxe)
“in the late 1940s, America was a nation of 150 million people, with an annual total of 8,000 book titles per year of all types and something under 200 publishing poets who were active enough to generate books. Today, the United States has twice as many people, but is now publishing, according to Bowker, over 290,000 book titles per year, of which some 4,000 titles alone are poetry. There must be somewhere between ten and twelve thousand publishing poets in the U.S. today in contrast with 200 fifty years ago.”, Ron Silliman, “Silliman’s Blog”, Thursday, June 14, 2007
The question is why they think it matters that a certain number of books appear. What harm do they feel it does? The only answer I seem to see to this is that they think this number of books means fewer sales for each book. So their point tends to be that they want a smaller number of books published so that a select group of authors would have higher sales figures.
The thing is that there isn’t a massive amount of money to be made from poetry so it can’t be the money that concerns these critics. If the books have writing that’s of unacceptably low quality they wouldn’t sell and they wouldn’t cut into the sales of the books that are supposedly so much better and more worthy of publication. So it’s a self-defeating argument really.
From what I can see there are excellent poets (some are active in discussions I’m involved in on Facebook), they win top awards, and they haven’t got a publisher yet. So, if anything, more books need to be published.
The only thing I disagree with in your blog is that you think it may be that poets are too elitist and cause fear in readers and buyers and that this starts at an early age. Although I think that can be true for some, my experience has always been that poetry is a natural part of children’s education. Open mics and readings have never been easier to get involved in. Poetry can be one of the most enjoyable and sociable forms of writing you can choose. It wasn’t like that when I was younger, and I think it’s wonderful now.
There certainly aren’t the same opportunities for fiction writers to socialise together, go to each other’s readings, and mutually support at performances and open mics.
I feel there’s a place for cryptic writing as well as accessible writing, and the various steps in between. When poetry appears more on TV, and when we have online open mics in the virtual world, we prove just how popular poetry can be. I’m not sure why it can have the image of being difficult or ‘not for everybody’.
I’ve always thought that it’s great to find so many magazines (or now online outlets) where people with all sorts of poetry can share their work. It’s not well paid and it’s known as the hardest form of writing, but at least everybody can share what they write somewhere.
There’s no doubt in my mind that there are poets of a very high standard who can’t find a publisher. I find this call for fewer books to be published astonishing and very wrong. Sometimes I think that the lack of payment for poetry can make it more competitive as the only ‘gain’ is in getting the recognition of publication. Competition has been proved to damage your writing as you’re looking at the other person rather than having your focus on your own work. Let’s stop it.
The question is why they think it matters that a certain number of books appear. What harm do they feel it does? The only answer I seem to see to this is that they think this number of books means fewer sales for each book. So their point tends to be that they want a smaller number of books published so that a select group of authors would have higher sales figures.
The thing is that there isn’t a massive amount of money to be made from poetry so it can’t be the money that concerns these critics. If the books have writing that’s of unacceptably low quality they wouldn’t sell and they wouldn’t cut into the sales of the books that are supposedly so much better and more worthy of publication. So it’s a self-defeating argument really.
From what I can see there are excellent poets (some are active in discussions I’m involved in on Facebook), they win top awards, and they haven’t got a publisher yet. So, if anything, more books need to be published.
The only thing I disagree with in your blog is that you think it may be that poets are too elitist and cause fear in readers and buyers and that this starts at an early age. Although I think that can be true for some, my experience has always been that poetry is a natural part of children’s education. Open mics and readings have never been easier to get involved in. Poetry can be one of the most enjoyable and sociable forms of writing you can choose. It wasn’t like that when I was younger, and I think it’s wonderful now.
There certainly aren’t the same opportunities for fiction writers to socialise together, go to each other’s readings, and mutually support at performances and open mics.
I feel there’s a place for cryptic writing as well as accessible writing, and the various steps in between. When poetry appears more on TV, and when we have online open mics in the virtual world, we prove just how popular poetry can be. I’m not sure why it can have the image of being difficult or ‘not for everybody’.
I’ve always thought that it’s great to find so many magazines (or now online outlets) where people with all sorts of poetry can share their work. It’s not well paid and it’s known as the hardest form of writing, but at least everybody can share what they write somewhere.
There’s no doubt in my mind that there are poets of a very high standard who can’t find a publisher. I find this call for fewer books to be published astonishing and very wrong. Sometimes I think that the lack of payment for poetry can make it more competitive as the only ‘gain’ is in getting the recognition of publication. Competition has been proved to damage your writing as you’re looking at the other person rather than having your focus on your own work. Let’s stop it.
The question is why they think it matters that a certain number of books appear. What harm do they feel it does? The only answer I seem to see to this is that they think this number of books means fewer sales for each book. So their point tends to be that they want a smaller number of books published so that a select group of authors would have higher sales figures.
The thing is that there isn’t a massive amount of money to be made from poetry so it can’t be the money that concerns these critics. If the books have writing that’s of unacceptably low quality they wouldn’t sell and they wouldn’t cut into the sales of the books that are supposedly so much better and more worthy of publication. So it’s a self-defeating argument really.
From what I can see there are excellent poets (some are active in discussions I’m involved in on Facebook), they win top awards, and they haven’t got a publisher yet. So, if anything, more books need to be published.
(continued)
The only thing I disagree with in your blog is that you think it may be that poets are too elitist and cause fear in readers and buyers and that this starts at an early age. Although I think that can be true for some, my experience has always been that poetry is a natural part of children’s education. Open mics and readings have never been easier to get involved in. Poetry can be one of the most enjoyable and sociable forms of writing you can choose. It wasn’t like that when I was younger, and I think it’s wonderful now.
There certainly aren’t the same opportunities for fiction writers to socialise together, go to each other’s readings, and mutually support at performances and open mics.
I feel there’s a place for cryptic writing as well as accessible writing, and the various steps in between. When poetry appears more on TV, and when we have online open mics in the virtual world, we prove just how popular poetry can be. I’m not sure why it can have the image of being difficult or ‘not for everybody’.
I’ve always thought that it’s great to find so many magazines (or now online outlets) where people with all sorts of poetry can share their work. It’s not well paid and it’s known as the hardest form of writing, but at least everybody can share what they write somewhere.
There’s no doubt in my mind that there are poets of a very high standard who can’t find a publisher. I find this call for fewer books to be published astonishing and very wrong. Sometimes I think that the lack of payment for poetry can make it more competitive as the only ‘gain’ is in getting the recognition of publication. Competition has been proved to damage your writing as you’re looking at the other person rather than having your focus on your own work. Let’s stop it.
And yes, I do agree with another post that publishers sometimes say they would welcome a limit on poetry books being published. Wanting a higher number of sales for each book isn’t a good enough reason for turning down poets whose collection is of high publishable standard.
I do think poetry has never been more popular and we do need to find ways to increase sales and to make it financially possible to publish the writers who deserve to have a collection out.
There are so many things wrong with the situation of poetry that one doesn’t know where to begin.
In the States, academic poets and those who publish them have largely abandoned educated non-specialists, and massified versions of poetry are often anti-intellectual and narrowly juvenile in range of emotion. We have on the one hand a glut of John Ashbery imitations and on the other what have been called “celebrity fetish objects” such as the poetry collections of Jewel.
Though there are a lot of poetry books out there, a curious member of the public cannot find a reliable way to sift through the detritus to get to the treasures and may therefore give up on poetry altogether.
I am attaching a link on light verse, which is corollary to the dilemma of poetry publishing in general.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C06E0DD1439F936A15752C0A96F9C8B63
Excellent that this is provoking much discussion, here and over at my blog. Lauri, sadly that attitude you encountered from a mag editor is probably not uncommon. Shame. Adele, it’s sad to hear about prize-winning poets who can’t get published.
The whole publishing industry needs a shake up, it seems to be moving in the opposite direction to the way it should, away from quality and diversity towards homogeneity and “safe” books which are a “sure thing” because they are exactly like other books that have sold. Grrr.
Adele: Thanks for commenting. The social aspect of poetry today is vital – and shows that there is indeed a thirst for poetry and a desire for such outlets. It’s easy to assume that the quality of poetry encountered at such readings is low, especially at open mics. But, as you well know, that is completely not the case. Some of the poems that have moved me the most recently have been heard at open mics like the Lumen. The fact that some of those poets can’t get published is astonishing to me.
JD: Thanks for the American perspective. I love your letter about light verse. And I do think it’s snobbery and arrogance on the part of the poetry establishment (and those people are poets, not just poetry publishers, as you know), that light verse is so often ignored – although it is such a huge seller.
Tania: see what you started? 🙂
Sue, I’m looking forward to your second collection! x
“From what I can see there are excellent poets (some are active in discussions I’m involved in on Facebook), they win top awards, and they haven’t got a publisher yet” (Adele Ward) – Filling a book with worthwhile material isn’t easy, judging by the books I read. There’s often a lot of padding between the better (even prize-winning) pieces. Either poets need to wait longer between books or they should produce more pamphlets. I’m not an excellent poet, though I’ve won a few hundred pounds and have had 150 poems published. I could barely scrape together enough poems for a pamphlet. Given another decade or so, I might have enough for a book.
“a curious member of the public cannot find a reliable way to sift through the detritus to get to the treasures and may therefore give up on poetry altogether” (J.D. Smith) – Agreed. Hence the calls for fewer books, I suppose. Curious members can no longer trust names (look at the latest Wendy Cope book) or blurbs (“these haunting, haunted poems negotiate their emotional freight in carefully crafted forms which mediate between exposure and guardedness. Expertly charting the geographies of love and desire, the histories of emptiness and grief …”) and because they’re new to poetry they might need more than a browse before they can decide whether a book’s ok for them.
The sad thing is it was just the same 30 years ago – we were having the same arguments then – the methods of communication may be different today but the basic stance is unchanged.
Michelle: Thanks! But I need to get my novel out there first!
Litrefs: Funny, though, how no one seems to think people need help finding their way through all the novels of all different sorts that are out there. I do believe that people can make their own choices if given a chance — even if we don’t like what they choose 🙂
Gerald: Hi there! And the same is true about all those articles about the death of the novel that keep popping up, decade after decade!
Litrefs – I agree that it’s hard to fill a collection and it takes years in my experience. But I can assure you there are full-length collections by poets who definitely should be published. It wouldn’t be right to give the names of people, but I’m certainly holding manuscripts by people who should have been published before now and there are no poems included just for padding. I can’t agree with people like Hugo Williams who say fewer books should be published. It makes no sense to me if the writers have produced collections of highly publishable standard.
Having aired our opinions, perhaps it’s time to consider solutions.
“It makes no sense to me if the writers have produced collections of highly publishable standard” (Adele Ward). So why aren’t they published? If a publisher thinks a book would make money, surely they’d publish it. The publishers I know most about are Salt and HappenStance (because they’ve gone public with their plans and financial situation). Both lose 1000s of pounds a year. Both are run by canny poets. I suspect they’d rather make money selling poetry than filling in grants forms. I suspect that they’ve a reasonable idea of how well a title will sell.
Who defines “publishable standard”? The Academics or the Public? If the public don’t want the book, maybe it’s not good enough for today’s more exacting standards. Yes I know that Van Gogh barely sold a painting, that in its first year, Joyce’s “Dubliners” sold 379 copies, 120 bought by Joyce, that the first Harry Potter book … etc, but the poetry book market is in recession and institutional publishers are retreating to their heartland – the stuff that only poetry can do. Comedy? Leave that to stand-ups – they do it better. Narrative? Flash writers do it better. You may not like “pure poetry”, “specialist poetry” (call it what you will) but I can understand why funds concentrate on it. It’s meant that the gap between “high” and “low” poetry has been emptied, so that there’s less flow and intermixing between the extremes (to the detriment of both, perhaps).
What can be done to redress the situation? The question that needs to be asked first is “when did you last buy a poetry book?” Salt would love you to buy one real soon. I think 3 main strategies have been adopted by funding bodies (1) Widening participation (minorities, NHS, schools, residencies in chip-shops, work-places, Poetry Days, enlisting celebs, etc). This has useful side-effects and the chance of shared funding. (2) Funding Individuals (backing promising writers) (3) Funding presses/magazines/writing-centres (hoping to thus benefit authors and readers via market forces).
All of these are being tried though the proportions vary every view years. I think the swing is more towards option 2 (elitism?) at the moment. What I think we can be pretty sure about is that there won’t be so much public funding available. The fate of poetry books is in our own purses.
Adele: Excellent and wise. I know I’ve recently bought several collections, anfd have responded to Salt’s pleas twice. But I already care about poetry and I know you’re comments aren’t about people like me. The trick is to get more people to care/read/buy poetry and mu guess is, like you said, to publish more of it of different types, NOT to rely on government subsidy, and have poets take it on the road as much as possible in a creative way. Poetry in chip shops? Sure. How about adopt-a-poet scheme? Even poetry in disguise? Certainly arrogantly publishing less of it is NOT the answer.