On identity...

I wrote the following short article for the Madrid Review (click on the image to enlarge it and read it without squinting!), discussing how life in Spain has affected my poetry and how identity is at the core of all poetry.

This article, plus three of my poems, is in Issue Two. Download the issue in full via this link. 

The Madrid Review podcast

I was the guest for the Madrid Review podcast last week. Grace Caplan was the interviewer with all sorts of unexpected questions, leading to discussions on belonging and estrangement, on the difficulties of translation, and on the genesis of my new poems that are in Issue Two of the mag. And I even gave a reading of them! You can have a listen to the podcast on Spotify via this link.

Poets for Movember at the MK Lit Fest

I'll be reading a poem tonight at this online event for the MK Lit Fest alongside a host of top-notch poets...

Unspoken exile, Graeme Richardson's Last of the Coalmine Choirboys

An eternal dilemma when tackling a review is whether to adopt an extrinsic or intrinsic approach, whether to consider the book purely in the context of the text itself, or whether to bear in mind any backstory or biographical context that the writer has preferred not to invoke explicitly. However, in the case of Graeme Richardson’s new pamphlet, Last of the Coalmine Choirboys (New Walk Editions, 2024), this dilemma becomes especially significant.

How to approach these poems without taking into account the fact that Richardson is the Sunday Times poetry critic? How to approach these poems without registering his day job in the archaeology department at the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology? How to approach these poems without contemplating his current perspective as a resident of Germany?

This last point is striking. Last of the Coalmine Choirboys’ sole setting is the U.K., and a very specific location at that, loaded with connotations of religión and industry. Brexit seems never to have happened. The poet himself has never been displaced. Except, of course, that it has. And he has. Which means that these poems can very much be seen as historical documents, if we understand history as a set of partial stories. 

In such a context, Richardson’s use of tenses becomes extremely interesting. One such example is ‘Those Amiable Dwellings’, which switches back and forth between the present and past, generating unease as to the reliability of its narrative perspective, then casting doubts on its own view of memory, shifting from ‘I tried to remember’  to ‘I remembered acutely’ within the space of a few lines, undercutting any sense of nostalgia, as in the following lines...

‘…Coke-furnace sunset in Clipstone Forest.
The headstocks grazing peacefully in the distance.
Before the sponsored walk, Dad would drive us round,
marking out the route with sawdust arrows,
Sports Report on the radio.

I cried for my mum, but was told that wouldn’t do…’

The above extract is representative of an implicit questioning that runs through the pamphlet, revolving around key aspects of religión, family and industry, all viewed through the lens of the individual, as in the opening stanza of ‘Unlatched and Lit’…

‘This sanctuary of my soul
at midnight is a seam of coal,
packed with power but hard to break.
I mine it as I lie awake…’

These deliciously judged lines also display Richardson’s awareness of form, rhyme and aural patterning. His poems are packed with scrupulous turns of phrase in which no word is used without regard for its connotations and ramifications. There’s a thorough, methodical, academically trained mind at work here, though the poems are immediately accesible, which means that many of the interesting notes at the end of the manuscript aren’t actually needed when tackling the work itself.

Perhaps the most surprising inclusions are two prose poems that feel like drum solos in the middle of a finely constructed song. Both in terms of syntax and semantics, they jolt the reader into wondering whether they fit in and pull their weight in the pamphlet as a whole.

Throughout Last of the Coalmine Choirboys, there’s unspoken exile, the perspective of someone who now returns on visits rather than inhabiting these scenes. In both temporal and spatial terms, implied otherness runs powerfully below the surface of this collection. Would it benefit from their explicit invocation? Or are some things best left unsaid and to the reader’s imaginiation? Or will they represent the next step on Graeme Richardson’s poetic journey…?

My book's first birthday

My book's approaching its first birthday! It might have garnered great reviews and accolades, but the best reward has been seeing it reach over 200 pairs of hands so far. Poetry only comes alive once it enters a reader's imagination! Thanks are due to all the editors at journals such as The Spectator, The Rialto, Acumen, Wild Court, Stand, Poetry Birmingham, Bad Lilies, The Frogmore Papers and Finished Creatures, where some of these poems first appeared, but especially thanks to Helena Nelson for publishing the collection.

However, its journey's only just begun. More readings from Whatever You Do, Just Don't are coming up in the New Year. Chichester and Faversham are confirmed so far for late February, and I'd be delighted if any other events or festivals were able to offer me a slot...!

@RialtoPoetry

@spectator

@PoetryBrum

@BadLilies

@FinishedPoetry

@AcumenPoetry

@FrogmorePress

, where some of these poems first appeared, but especially thanks to

@Nell_Nelson

for publishing the book.

179

The subjunctive

Learning Spanish involved getting to grips with the subjunctive. For instance, cuando vas and cuando vayas are two very different animals. Both might well be translated into English as when you go, but the indicative would imply habitual action, whereas the subjunctive would suggest potential consequence, the former followed in English by the present tense, the latter by the future, as in when you go, I'm happy or when you go, I'll be happy.

This understanding of the building blocks of another language then fed back into my view of English. Once I recognised that the it's a syntactic way of expressing what might happen or what might have happened, I also realised that the subjunctive mood is an integral part of any poem in any language, whether it's invoked explicitly or not. And thus my view of poetry also shifted. The counterpoint of bilingualism is always enlightening.

Poetry London submissions

It's interesting to note that Poetry London have closed to submissions for a period. According to the editor, Niall Campbell, there'll be more info when we decide how best to proceed. 

Poetry London, of course, use Submittable, and have been inundated with poems over the last few months, in an experience that's shared by many major journals. The current dynamic feels unsustainable, that's for sure, if we don't want to burn out our editors and embitter our poets.

The Madrid Review

The Madrid Review is a top-notch addition to the European literary scene, both online and in print (see their website via this link). I'm delighted to have three poems and a prose piece in their forthcoming issue, which is packed with big hitters. Here's a sneak preview of the cover...

Where do we go from here?

Rather than going for a provocative hot take, I’ve waited ten days since returning from the U.K. before posting my reflections on the trip. A total of five readings in six days was certainly an intense experience, and it gave me a real feel for the poetry scene right now.

First off, it served as a timely reminder that 99% of U.K. poetry exists beyond social media and isn’t even aware of many trendy self-publicists. This is especially true beyond the big cities and festivals, at readings above pubs or in arts centres in provincial towns, where people attend and buy books through a pure love of the genre. These people, of course, are my readers.

Secondly, I was struck by just how many remarked on their disillusionment with the direction that many major journals, festivals and publishers have taken in recent years. In fact, there’s clearly a sizeable chunk of poetry readers, purchasers and aficionados who feel disengaged with current fashions. And I’m not just invoking embittered white male OAPs here. Event after event, I encountered varied members of my audience coming up to me at the interval or once the reading finished, champing at the bit to discuss the issue, expressing deep frustration. 

As an individual poet, I can plough my own furrow, reaching out to readers via initiatives such as my recent tour. But a wider issue remains. The disconnect between the London-centric Poetry Establishment (in its changing guises) and its customer base beyond a miniscule social media bubble has never been greater, with the impression that the former has turned its back on the latter so long as the funding keeps rolling in.

That’s a dangerous state of affairs for any genre that wishes to achieve anything beyond mere narcissistic self-expression, self-flagellation and self-adulation. Where do we go from here?

Whatever You Do, Just Don't...Miss It!

Whatever You Do, Just Don't...Miss It! My September tour, that is, five readings in the space of six days. It would be great to see you at one of them...!

The Spotifying of poetry

In recent conversations with a friend (Hi Mat!), the Spotifying of poetry came up. By this term, I don’t mean that poetry is necessarily moving to Spotify, though its presence is certainly growing there. Instead, I’m referring to changes that are taking place in how we consume both music and poetry.

The emergence of Spotify seems to have encouraged people to listen to hit after hit, each from a different group or singer. And in a similar way, social media appears to have enabled us to scroll straight from one individual poem to another. Bearing in mind that most of us are listeners as well as readers, has the shift in how we consume music also played an additional role in altering how we approach poetry?

However, there’s still a trenchant percentage of people who prefer albums, for the way tracks bounce off each other, for the layered, more accumulative listening that helps us appreciate artists more. And then we've got the álbum tracks, which we often end up treasuring more than the hit singles themselves.

And along similar lines, single-poet full collections still have a niche. I believe there’s such a thing as a collection poem, for instance, rather than a magazine poem. A collection poem might be slight if offered up on its own, but it complements the bigger poems around it when placed in the context of an ms, establishing dialogues and connections that run through a book and provide the whole with greater depth.

In fact, I have to admit that I’m starting to wince when I see poets and readers stating on social media that a poem is a banger. Banger after banger can get extremely tedious and mind-numbing after a while. As can hit after hit on Spotify…

A poem by Barry Smith

I'm delighted to feature a poem by Barry Smith today, taken from Reeling and Writhing (Vole Books, 2023), his most recent collection, which is something of a retrospective. In fact, it includes work written across half a century, encompassing a range of styles from sonnets and songs to mock heroic satire, spinning off ideas from the Sixties to the Twenties!

The poem's title is ‘Supplicant’. It's technically adroit, accumulating details, layering them deftly, gradually drawing us in. Much of its power lies in its use of reportage, never telling the reader what to think. Instead, it juxtaposes observations and invites us to engage with its religious and societal ramifications, lifting what might first appear a mere anecdote into resonant verse. I hope you enjoy it...! 

Supplicant

As if called to midday prayer he hunches
on all fours, his back turned to the abbey

where angels and pilgrims blithely
ascend heavenwards gripping stone ladders

flanking iron-studded oak doors
while solemn attendants collect entrance fees.

The crouching man kneels in convocation,
vision fully engaged with grey pavement

as a blackly bristling wire-haired terrier
stands guarding his singularly suppliant master,

sole immobility in this crush of busy shoppers
hustling beneath civic Roman colonnade

rising in fluted stonework above.
No-one pauses or seems to witness,

no hasty handful of change clinks by his side,
only the pool of liquid spreads

slowly suppurating the patch
between recusant dog and man.

Barry Smith

(first published in Liminal, a Chichester Stanza Anthology)

Poetry submissions in the Submittable era

There’s no doubt that Submittable has revolutionised the process of submitting poetry to journals over the last few years, both for poets and for editors. It’s terrific for the former, who are able to make submissions in minutes, follow their progress and keep track of what they’ve sent where, rather than relying on spreadsheets or trawling through emails. And then it’s also extremely useful for the latter, enabling them to free up their email inboxes, structure their reading in terms of drawing up long and short lists, and ensure stuff doesn’t get left behind.

Moreover, the use of Submittable appears to have involuntarily generated certain trends in terms of the poetry that journals are publishing, due mainly to the vastly increased numbers of submissions that its ease of use has encouraged. For example, if a single, individual editor receives over 18,000 poems a year via Submittable (a reasonable figure for certain major magazines, as indicated to me in private by a couple of those editors), their attitude to accepting or rejecting those poems inevitably changes, whether they admit it to themselves or not. The consequence seems to be that Submittable’s use lends itself to poems that generate an immediate impact, given the editor has seconds to view each poem on the screen before making an initial decision whether to hold or dismiss the piece in question.

In this context, it’s also worthwhile for poets to put themselves in an editor’s (or magazine publisher’s) shoes. With the current rules of play, some poets boast on social media of having a dozen or more subs on the go at any one time, often using a scattergun approach because they have no skin in any journal’s game. 

And then many poets simply see magazines as an outlet for the work rather than as an integral part of the creative process of discovering new work by contemporaries, of keeping up with the scene. They fail to recognise that poets and editors should sit around a metaphorical table rather than stare each other down from opposing sides of a decrepit fence, the former bombarding the latter with subs and then wondering why communication breaks down.

Some editors are thus changing the way they use Submittable, operating with submission windows. The latter option might reduce impromptu, spur-of-the-moment, chuck-a-few-poems-their way subs, but it still tends to provoke an absolute avalanche of subs as soon as the window is opened, often leading to it being closed abruptly once the journal’s limit with the platform is reached.

Another option is charging for poets to send their work in via Submittable, justifying this payment in the context of the fees that magazines themselves have to pay for use of the platform. These submission charges are typical in the States, but highly controversial in the U.K., not least because of the consequent implicit exclusion of poets who have limited financial means.

What might be a potential solution? Well, in order to find a solution, it’s best to identify and address the problem. And the problem, from my perspective, isn’t Submittable as such, rather the fact that its emergence has coincided with a worsening of the age-old issue that there are too many writers and not enough readers of poetry, thus creating a perfect storm.

Everyone wants to be published in print-based journals and no one wants to buy them. For instance, let’s imagine that 18,000 poems a year equate to about 5,000 poets submitting, If all of them bought an issue of the magazine in question, the mag would be able to pay its way. And just imagine if half of them then went on to subscribe! The financial sums involved aren’t inconsequential – they might even reach the equivalent of many ACE grants.

So why not take Candlestick Press’ example and apply it to major journals? They stipulate that (unless you are a concession or suffering financial hardship) any poet who wishes to take part a Candlestick competition should first buy one of their pamphlets. Or what about Rattle, who include a year’s subscription in their admittedly hefty competition entry fee? Or Crannog, who request the purchase of their current issue by any submitter who’s never previously been published by them? This condition also means that the poet in question receives a good dose of contemporary poetry in return for submitting, keeping something tangible that they can read even if their work fails to be accepted.

Underlining, of course, that it’s crucial to put in place measures to avoid the problem of potentially excluding poets of limited means (by detailing a list of exemptions), I see no reason why many print-based journals shouldn’t follow a similar policy. Bearing in mind that most magazine guidelines state that poets should read an issue before subbing (and many poets ignore that advice completely), such a system would provide them immediately with loads of excellent preparatory material.

Furthermore, fewer submissions would arrive via Submittable, meaning that editors would no longer be so overwhelmed, while the poets’ engagement with the magazine would also be greater! This process wouldn’t only ensure a greater commitment on the part of the submitting poet,but also  longer print runs, stronger sales and continuity of the journal beyond endless funding applications. What do you think?!

If you can’t be bothered to read a print-based  magazine, do you deserve to be published by it?!

‘I wish I'd written that’

Kevin Bailey has generously written a terrific review of Whatever You Do, Just Don't for HQ Poetry Magazine, so terrific that I'm almost willing to forgive him for calling me Matt! Here are a couple of quick quotes... This is superb and engaging poetry - highly recommended and worth getting. As a poet-of-sorts myself, when I start to think ‘I wish I'd written that’, I know that the experience of engaging with their work is going to be a good one.

i.m. Geoff Hattersley (1956-2024)

Geoff Hattersley, who died yesterday, was one of the most outstanding but underrated poets of his generation, while his impact on other poets was so great that it wouldn’t be hyperbolic to suggest his emergence back in the 1980s transformed U.K. poetry. In fact, this influence will undoubtedly become a fundamental part of his legacy to the genre, alongside his idiosyncratic, top-notch poems.

Back in the late 1980s and early 1990s, he was a pioneer in embracing American techniques and aesthetics, infusing them with the humour and character of oral language in Yorkshire society, and generating something new. I remember reading his work for the first time and suddenly waking up to the possibility of Transatlantic poetic communication far beyond expected channels.

Without his example, I find it difficult to imagine Simon Armitage writing Zoom!, as it shares numerous qualities with Hattersley’s poetry. What’s more, Zoom!, the current Poet Laureate’s first full collection, also includes several poems that were previously published in a pamphlet titled The Distance Between Stars, which was edited and brought out by Geoff Hattersley himself under his Wide Skirt imprint.

In the above context, given Armitage’s importance and relevance to the present-day scene, Geoff Hattersley’s contribution as an editor and publisher has been immense. As for his poetry itself, why not celebrate his life by getting hold of his most recent collection, Instead of an Alibi (Broken Sleep Books, 2023), recently the subject of an excellent review by Matthew Paulan excellent review by Matthew Paul for The Friday Poem and with a sample poem from it in The Guardian a couple of months ago…?

The evolving nature of the self, Lucy Dixcart's Company of Ghosts

There’s some terrific poetry being written these days around the motif of ghosts. Anna Saunders’ Ghosting for Beginners (Indigo Dreams Publishing, 2018) is an excellent case in point, as are Rebecca Farmer’s two pamphlets, Not Really (Smith-Doorstop, 2014) and A Separate Appointment (New Walk Editions, 2022).

The latter poet is especially interesting as a point of comparison and contrast with the subject of today's review, Lucy Dixcart and her first full collection, Company of Ghosts (Indigo Dreams Publishing, 2024). In both poets’ writing, ghosts interact with the living, though the ghosts in Rebecca Farmer’s poetry are primarily lost loved ones, which is understandable given she is from an older generation. 

In Lucy Dixcart’s case, meanwhile, her ghosts tend not to be sourced from the dead. Instead, they represent the hypothetical selves that could have existed if different life choices had been made, or they act out the role of former selves, all seen from someone who’s approaching the mid-point of life, looking back on youth and wondering what might have been.

One such example of forking paths can be found in the opening lines to ‘In Concert’…

At night, my lost sisters rise –
floating ghosts manacled with kelp,
faces moon-soaked, lassoed by their own
salty hair.

Each sings her last moment - 
a job declined, a child that wasn’t,
a door closed, or opened.
I’ve shed a self at every threshold…

And then those afore-mentioned former selves appear later on the collection, passing judgement on present-day events and speakers, as in ‘Reunion’, in which the third person plays the ghost…

…She’s rolling her eyes,
propels me to some former friends. We sift
through weddings, children, work – nothing sticks.
I call for help, but she’s jigsawed apart
and all her edges are missing…

Throughout this collection, Lucy Dixcart takes the device of ghosts and uses it innovatively to explore the evolving nature of the self. Like all good poetry, Company of Ghosts confounds our expectations and enriches our own inner lives as we find ourselves encountering our own ghosts too… 

The current cull of unfunded, print-based, poetry publishing

Ok, ok, so I know full well the following is absolutely a first-world problem, but I do feel it’s worth putting on record that unfunded, print-based, poetry publishing in the U.K. is being decimated right now.

Here’s a brief, provisional list (please forward me further suggestions and I’ll add them) of the outfits we’ve lost so far this year. In under six months.

Publishers:

-         Maytree

-         Holland Park
-         Victorina

Journals:

-         Dreich
-         South
-         Planet

And the above is on top of major casualties last year such as Ambit. Oh, and recent urgent appeals to buy books from the likes of Longbarrow and Broken Sleep.

Moreover, online isn’t a magic wand. How many webzines have vanished from the internet once they ceased publishing new stuff? That’s the modern equivalent of going out of print, except nobody can buy second-hand copies of the mags in question. And then, only this morning, I read that One Hand Clapping seem to have lost their entire online archive, a huge blow both for them and for the poets involved.

At this stage of the game, there are grave doubts as to how many unfunded, print-based, poetry publishers, both of mags and collections, will still be alive and kicking by the end of the year. I see no point denying we’re in a full-blown crisis. What will emerge from the smouldering ruins…?

Transatlantic communication, Adam Chiles' Bluff

Adam Chiles’ second full collection, Bluff (Measure Press, 2024), is one of the most thought-provoking books to emerge this year. Its interest is two-fold. On the one hand, there’s its intrinsic poetic quality. And on the other hand, there’s the unique implicit dialogue that it establishes between the U.K. and U.S. poetry scenes.

Let’s start with this latter issue. Chiles was originally from the U.K. and now lives in the U,S.. His first collection was published by Cinnamon Press in the U.K. back in 2008, but most of his recent magazine and journal credits seem to be Stateside, while this book has also been brought out under the auspices of an American publisher. However, the vast majority of his current subject matter revolves around his previous life in the U.K.. And then all the spelling is Americanised, though the turns of phrase are inherently and quintessentially British.

What’s more, Chiles might be publishing in the U.S., but his aesthetic refuses to plump for either side of the American binary polarity between formal and free verse. Instead, he adopts the more British approach of playing with both methods, often fusing them within a single poem. As such, Bluff offers an excellent bridge across the Atlantic, a reminder that what unites us is far stronger than what separates us. It sets out to include both nationalities and achieves its aims, dodging false polemics, which brings us neatly on to the poems themselves.

There are direct allusions to both Edward Thomas and Philip Larkin in this book, and both are present in the background via Chiles’ portrayal of humans in the natural world, paired with his fierce clarity of language, as in the following extract from ‘Self-Portrait as a Lighthouse’…

…You inhabit the verges

of this song, neck-deep
amid the salt-scrim,

a pummeled scar,
storm-wrecked, sheer

above the Atlantic’s steel
horizon. Each night,

mind ablaze, you plow
the gale’s blind acre…

And then there are terrific, pared-back poems of grief for the poet’s father, which run throughout the collection, again interwoven with the nature The opening lines of ‘Reading Edward Thomas to My Father’ provide an excellent example of Chiles’ technique…

From the ninth-floor hospital window, acres broaden,
scroll out past slate and pylon, the black moor

unfastening, hour by hour, its thicket of wounds…

Bluff is a collection that repays repeated readings. Its ability to generate empathy in the reader, to find the universal in the specific, are eternal values that are often eschewed in contemporary poetry, but Adam Chiles is a master of them. It seems clear that he’s gaining a considerable readership in the U.S., and it’s time a U.K. audience discovered or rediscovered him too. His poems are a breath of fresh air.

A video from the Rogue Strands reading in London

Thanks to Mat Riches' dexterity with his flash phone, here's a video of me reading a poem from Whatever You Do, Just Don't at the recent Rogue Strands event in London. My YouTube channel seems to be functioning very well as a way of reaching new readers, and I'd be grateful if you could subscribe...

On Establishments

As soon as an old establishment is shunted aside by a new one, the new establishment's days are numbered. Its aura immediately starts to lose its shine, and another establishment, as yet unidentified, begins an ascent to replace it in turn.

And so the process continues. Favours are always traded. Nests are forever feathered. The names and faces and labels might vary, but the dynamics of power remain the same...

Two new poems in The Spectator

I've had two new poems in The Spectator over the last couple of weeks. It's always good to place poetry in an outlet that reaches so many general readers, but I'm especially happy on this occasion, given that these are my first publications since Whatever You Do, Just Don't came out.

Nigel Kent's generosity

Thanks to Nigel Kent's generosity, there are two features about Whatever You Do, Just Don't up at his website. On the one hand, there's a "Drop-in", written by myself, in which I focus on one of the poems from the collection, which is also reproduced in the same article. And on the other hand, there's Nigel's exquisite review of my collection. Here's a quick quote, but you can read it in full via this link...

Stewart’s collection shows what can be achieved when a poet doesn’t ignore most people: when a poet engages with universal concerns in poems that are apparently artless yet finely crafted, in poems that are ambitious yet always accessible, relatable and meaningful. 

Last week's readings

It was brilliant to read last week at both Rogue Strands in London and at the Cheltenham Poetry Festival (thanks to Anna Saunders for the invite to the latter), to see old and new faces, to read to over seventy people in all, and to shift 15 books. Poetry is alive and kicking out there in the wild...! 

Forthcoming readings in London and Cheltenham...

I've got two readings in the coming days, and I'd be delighted if any readers of Rogue Strands could come along and say hello!

First off, I'll be reading at our Rogue Strands event in London on 23rd April (at The Devereux, which is an ace venue). It's free entry, kicking off at 7 p.m..Poets from Carcanet, Red Squirrel, New Walk, Tall Lighthouse and HappenStance for your delectation. Rebecca Farmer, Paul Stephenson, Christopher Horton, Suzanna Fitzpatrick, Mat Riches and myself. All champing at the bit, all raring to read for you, all gagging to gallop to the bar (speaking for Mat and myself, at least)! And then on 25th April, I'll be reading at the Cheltenham Poetry Festival alongside Chris Hemingway, Ardith Brown and Taz Rahman. This event also starts at 7 p.m. and is ticketed (get hold of yours via this link). Having read there twice in the past, at Buzzwords and at Poetry Café Refreshed, I know full well that Cheltenham is a veritable poetry hotbed, so I'm delighted to be returning and hope to see a whole host of new and old faces...!

The Elephant in the Poetry Publishing Room

Right now, the Elephant in the Poetry Publishing Room isn’t funding, which is eternally being debated. No, there’s another issue that very few poetry publishers are prepared to discuss in public, and that’s the collapse in sales of single-poet collections.

Those sales were already low, but they’re now pitiful. And if you doubt the veracity of this statement, just take a trip over to the official Companies House website and have a look at a few sets of poetry publishers’ accounts. And read and weep.

Of course, amid the rush for that afore-mentioned funding, most publishers are only too keen to bury their disastrous sales figures. What’s more, if funding is what keeps their heads above water (rather than actually shifting units), they have little motivation to tackle the problem head-on. However, if we love books, it’s urgent that we should all discuss the reasons why customers are turning their backs on poetry collections, and then ask ourselves how we might turn things around.

First of all, what about those reasons? Well, to start with, the fall-out from the pandemic is still being felt. Audiences at festivals and in-person readings understandably remain lower than pre-Covid, given the average age of attendees. Meanwhile, online readings don’t seem to generate a similar level of interval and post-reading conversations between the poet and members of the audience (and by extension, thus bring about far fewer sales).

Moreover, the posting of free content on blogs, websites and social media is undoubtedly a major issue. Faced with such an abundance of riches, all available gratis, readers understandably wonder why they should bother investing in books.

It feels like a fundamental shift has taken place, as if the rules of the poetry publishing games have all changed, though most of the players haven’t noticed yet (or aren’t making any public acknowledgement of having done so). In this context, it’s especially important to assert the poetry collection’s value as an object, as a sensory experience, as a physical connection with the words that are printed on its pages, as an act of communication that reaches far beyond a screen. As a consequence, production values become even more important. The quality of the paper, of the cover design, of the typesetting, fonts, all become something to savour, something that lifts print-based poetry above a phone or tablet. That said, however, a balance needs to be struck between these materials and the affordability of collections, as sales are inevitably connected to retail prices.

And then there’s the permanent qualities of books against the transient nature of the internet. As readers, if we don't buy, read and treasure poetry collections, we'll be left with a random succession of poems to be scrolled through for free on a screen, consumed and forgotten in minutes.

This seems a pivotal moment for everyone involved in the poetry world. Sales aren’t an issue that only affects publishers. By extension, the problem also ripples out to poets and readers. Leaving aside the policies of ACE, if we ourselves don’t take the bull by the horns, get innovative in our poetic relationships and make an effort from all sides to embrace the importance of print-based poetry collections, we’ll lose the huge diversity of voices that are published every year in the U.K., in which case we’ll have nobody but ourselves to blame…