Not to mention how it releases a tide (well, a wave) of established
names to be picked up by the other publishers, who will thereby take on
fewer new ones.
Elizabeth James
I would just like to say that Poetry Salzburg (formerly University of
Salzburg Press) will stick to its policy of supporting a wide range of
poets. For example, we have revived interest in James Kirkup's work - he
had been neglected by British poetry presses for a very long time - by
(re)publishing 15 volumes from 1995 to 1998. At the same time we published,
among many others, David Miller's Collected Poems and Nicholas Samaras's
seond volume. The latter was a Yale Young Poets prizewinner.
Although I agree with Elizabeth James that there will be more poets around
whose collections are not being published, I think that most poetry presses
will stick to their policy. On the other hand, the number of collections
published by OUP has been decreasing anyway. 18 months ago I had the
opportunity of talking to OUP's poetry editor. They were publishing 8
volumes per year and paid their authors £300-400 per collection. But at
least they seemed to have the money to market them properly, because they
got them into the shops. Nonetheless it is a shame that another so-called
big press - it is certainly not 'big' in terms of poetry publications - has
axed its poetry list.
W.G.
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