In all this OUP discussion, no one has mentioned that the list didn't
actually disappear but continues under the management of Michael Schmidt of
Carcanet, who is thus in the unique position of running two supposedly
separate poetry publishers. At least, that was the situation when I last
heard. Does anyone know how this is working out?

Best wishes


Matthew Francis
[ mailto:[log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>
01443 482856

-----Original Message-----
From: Sean O'Brien [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 08 April 2000 17:30
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: OUP etc




Felicitations, Roddy!

No, that's not 'just the way it is'. Enlisting 'an off-list poet' to make
anonymous comments based on a misunderstanding of what I said is pretty
desperate. Get yer pal (who for all I know is also my pal) to decloak and
then it may be possible to a) decide if theirs is a serious contribution or
a rented noise, depending on which we'll perhaps b) get back to the facts.
Or you could give up wriggling. Go on: you know you want to.

'Fashion' is not the issue where subsidy is concerned. 'Struggling on
£10,000 a year" is something a lot of people, poets and otherwise, have to
do. A lot of people have to make do with less. I don't want anyone to go
short, but you didn't have to join. 'Working poets'? That sounds like the
aesthetics of Oi, or of Me and My Pals, or even The Daily Mail. Please
reconsider your formulation before tunring into Gary Bushell..

Your pal is welcome to consider getting published a matter of heroically
'gate-crashing' but you'll forgive me for saying it sounds a)belated and
b)comically inflated. To rope in Farley is a bit rich. I'm second to none in
admiration for his poems, but he was spotted as soon as he showed some work.
That's more like being ushered into the buliding than gatecrashing.

Avec les grands esteems

Yours in struggle

Sean



-----Original Message-----
From: Roddy Lumsden < [log in to unmask]
<mailto:[log in to unmask]> >
To: Poetryetc < [log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]> >
Date: Saturday, April 08, 2000 4:37 PM
Subject: OUP etc


>>Before we get any further into this, let's have it understood that this is
a lively disagreement, not a personal row.

Absolutely, Sean.  I'm not in the habit of rowing with my peers, especially
with one who hasn't lost an argument since the heyday of disco.  But I don't
think calling the OUP list 'little-lamented' was even a 'personal' opinion -
that's just the way it is, though I don't expect those who were mucked about
to agree.  I should also note that I imagine the OUP editors would offer a
good defence as to why things declined into such a vulnerable state.

Re Chatto, it may be a small list, but with Bernard O'Donoghue, Gerard
Woodward, Ruth Padel, John Fuller, Alan Jenkins and Kate Clanchy, it has
enjoyed significant success in recent years, with many awards, including
some bestowed by your good self.

>> 'Subsidy junkies' is too vague a term for the range of funding sources
involved.

Yes, of course, I was being somewhat crass.  My anti-subsidy tendencies are
not very fashionable.  I just hate to see dreck being subsidised through
unwarranted handouts to publishers while working poets struggle on £10,000 a
year.  There's a whole article to be written on and around this - the need
to publish excellent, complex work which will never sell much versus the
subsidy-raised hopes of heartbroken minor poets etc.  And OUP certainly
wasn't a major culprit.

>> Picador started before OUP closed. Therefore the number of possibilities
is reduced.

I still don't get what you think is gained by an increased number of
possibilities.  There's still more than enough room for all the most
talented poets - and to allow the waning ones to continue publishing in
their dotage.  But an off-list poet with whom I discussed this put it in a
way I hadn't thought of, thus:

"Sean seems to be equating "possibilities" being narrowed (i.e. the amount
of new writing that can get published) with some qualitative decrease. Not
so. As you say, other lists have picked up the best of the rest and new work
of any significance will always be picked up by the likes of Don, Neil
Astley and Robin. He is being a bit romantic if he thinks that
"possibilities" are kind of "out there" waiting to enhance the canon.
Nothing is further from the truth. The likes of Alice, Paul, you, me et al
were not invited in, we gate-crashed. Energetic new writers will do that.
It's irrelevant how many invites are printed."


yrs gatecrashingly,

Roddy



%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%