Focus on poetry – An artform in crisis

Poetry is in the midst of a renaissance, with more people writing it, more magazines and readings, and greater interest in the artform than ever before. At the same time, this most esoteric form of literature is suffering from decreasing sales. Chris Holifield looks at what is being done to tackle this mismatch.
Every week, all over the country, there are well-attended poetry readings. Supported by public money, many small presses are funded to publish poetry. But in spite of this, the sales of poetry books have shown a steady decline, from 1.7% of the general retail market in 1998 to 1.2% in 2003.

Alarmingly, the number of new poetry books being published has mushroomed, increasing twice as fast as other books over the past ten years, meaning that the sales of each individual title have, on average, decreased. Poets can?t make a livelihood through practising their craft unless they are very famous indeed. But this doesn?t mean that there?s any slowdown in the number of aspiring poets ? an impressive number of whom are willing to grind away in the hope that publication, good reviews and literary fame will eventually come their way.

Managing a mismatch

So what, exactly, is the poetry-supporting world of publishers and arts organisations going to do about this mismatch between creative outpouring and market response? Many publishers feel they?re doing their best already and that they can?t be blamed for the market?s lack of enthusiasm for poetry. The poetry lists of the larger publishing groups exist for prestige rather than profit-making reasons ? and the poetry world should be grateful for this corporate support. The smaller poetry publishers subsidised by Arts Council England (ACE), which devotes a large proportion of its literature funding to poetry, are funded to publish, not to sell. And the poetry world tends to be inward looking, not really focused on the demands of readers and the marketplace. To compound the problem, there has been an overall decline in the amount of review space given to the artform, so it?s quite hard for new poetry to make any impact.

In the bookshops, poetry is getting less and less space. The widespread introduction of electronic point of sale to control stock has revealed just how poor poetry book sales have been. In selecting what to stock, the chain bookshops are being increasingly hard-nosed as they focus on market share.

Promoting poetry

So, what is being done to promote poetry? The Poetry Society runs National Poetry Day and has an excellent education programme. The Poetry Library does sterling work and has an impressive online library of poetry magazines. Poetry company, Apples and Snakes promotes performance poetry and is expanding its work outside London. There is also the work of Poetry London, the excellent South Bank poetry-reading programme and, outside London, organisations such as New Writing North and the Scottish Poetry Library. Then there are poetry prizes such as the Forward, the Whitbread and the T S Eliot. Amongst the festivals, Aldeburgh and Ledbury do a good job of focusing on poetry.

The trouble is that they all tend to preach to the converted, a relatively small group of enthusiasts, and little work is being done to encourage more readers to try poetry or existing poetry readers to experiment across a wider range. There?s also a big gap between the tiny percentage of people who buy contemporary poetry and the large numbers who read classic poetry or lighter verse. So, how do you encourage poetry readers to graduate from one to the other?

This is where the Poetry Book Society (PBS) comes in. Essentially a poetry book club set up by T S Eliot and friends in 1953 to foster a love of poetry and to develop the sales of poetry books, the Society offers the best contemporary poetry, chosen and reviewed by its poet selectors. It runs the T S Eliot Prize for the best new poetry collection of the year and has also organised poetry tours. Its focus has been on contemporary work, but the PBS has recently taken on a wider role in developing poetry readers and encouraging the sales of poetry books across the board.

The Society recently set up http://www.poetrybookshoponline.com (PBO), a specialist online bookstore to make it possible for anyone to get hold of any UK-published poetry book ? thus providing the kind of access that poetry needs. Although the start-up has been supported by ACE it must ultimately succeed as a commercial enterprise. A key aspect of this will be ambitions to build an international readership for British poets, before moving on to offer international poetry titles on the site. The PBO will provide a platform for a wide range of reader-centred activities across the poetry spectrum. And it is reader development, coupled with better access to poetry books, that provides the way forward for poetry. There?s plenty of action on the poetry writing front, but it is only if readers are developed that this creativity will bear fruit.

Poetry and the curriculum

Developing children?s love of poetry and keeping it going as they reach adolescence is crucial in terms of creating long-term poetry readers. In schools, poetry has its place as part of the national curriculum, but problems with school funding have hit book provision and libraries. Poetry must be made fun for children, rather than just another dreary bit of schoolwork. This will require close collaboration between arts organisations and schools, and effective partnerships to drive new projects forward. Schools and libraries will need support, training and expertise, and parents and grandparents should be enlisted to encourage children to read poetry at home as well as at school.

If we are to sustain and develop the place of poetry in our culture we must develop a love of poetry amongst the young, and foster it as they get older by encouraging the widest possible readership and enjoyment of poetry.

Chris Holifield is Director of the Poetry Book Society.
t: 020 8870 8403;
e: [email protected];
w: http://www.poetrybooks.co.uk