Hi Peter,

Yes, I think that poetry is best understood as a pluraity of practices, traditions, trajectories, and of 
course collisions, seedings, transgressions. 

I think our understanding of how these various practices are received though is quite complex; 
there's little loyalty to manifestos within a readership. And that's to be celebrated, surely. it is 
perhaps the job of the artists to differentiate and to draw boundaries around their art, but that's 
not a reader's job?

In my sales experience, I'd say it's entirely possible that someone could read both you and 
Harrison. I mean, I do for starters. Reading tastes are far more varied than one thinks, and quite 
ungovernable, and it's perfectly normal for someone to read diversely. I mean I read Joyce and PD 
James, William Gibson and Robbe-Grillet. Professionally I read as widely as I can, and I hope my 
publishing reflects that. Privately, my reading follows practical obsessions, like "Just how is Polley 
handling New Pastoral writing?" Or, "How is Sutherland dealing with certainty?" Sometimes, I read 
just to veg out, like dipping into something unexpected and sticking with it to see what happens, 
even when its awful. A bit like surfing through FreeView and ending up watching "100 Best ’80s 
Makeover Programmes", and sitting there dribbling on to my tacos.

I think that in one sense, beyond about 200 highly differentiated and specialised readers, we're in 
direct competition with all other poetries. Broadly speaking, most people buy on average six 
books of poetry a year -- I'm talking about the "general readership" here. Putting your book in 
their hands is a complex matter. It involves PR, timing, distribution, retails penetration, the media, 
and those mechanisms whereby publishers attempt to construct choices. This is the most 
mysterious part of it all for me. Choice is about the artificial constraint of total product in a genre, 
and the construction of a narrower range of available, desirable titles. Part of the process is about 
obscuring the total range, part is about advocating a handful of titles. It's also about managing 
expectations and actions. In one sense, I suspect that people want to be told what to buy, and that 
those who philosophically reject this, actually do not create better conditions for sales and 
reading, but actually shrink the market and the likeliehood of writers meeting readers. 

The same is true for lead titles. If you have none you'll sell less books, if you have some, you'll sell 
more of everything. There's a weird psychology to purchasing. for example, if you want to sell a 
book, put it in a selection of two others and you'll sell more than if you just offer the one title. We 
like selecting. People also buy more from a pile of one book, than if it was one single copy on a 
table, or in a shelf. 

As for Carol Ann, a writer I admire, especially the early books, I think that she's a writer who has 
crossed over into a larger trade readership. There's a lot to unpack in this. There are a wide range 
of stakeholders, or investors, in her writing life, and people in media, critics, academics, 
schoolteachers, working women, children, booksellers, agents, and many more, have a share in 
her life as a writer. She is also capable of writing in a wide range of styles and her work is 
fascinating in how he negotiates her readership whilst modulating her art. I think readership does 
bring with it responsibility. Someone once remarked to me that Prynne recommended taking a 
flamethrower to an audience. Ah, the 1970s. I wonder if that's true. But it offers a different take on 
how a writer responds to popularity. Some flourish. Some decline. 

Best as
C