Hi Jeremy. To reply to your shortened list, and
what it signifies to you, will mean I have to write a long reply and one
that will seem casuistical to many. As this is about the 3rd time I've taken the
bait, it will also look as though I'm trying to defend the poetry
prizes and their 'mainstream' beneficiaries. I don't really feel a calling for
either
I should say first that I've only read two
of the books on the list (one I liked, the other not) so I'm in no position to
comment on the choices of the judges who will have had to read something like
100, possibly 120 books.
But yes, perhaps "the range of
publishers is disappointingly
limited".
A far better question would be: Is the range
of work disappointingly limited? My answer to that would be a provisional "not
really".
Let me try to explain. The publishing house doesn't
necessarily tell you much about style or content of the published. Take
Carcanet, often well represented on these lists, which publishes Sophie Hannah
as well as Peter Riley. Some houses, like Cape perhaps, may have a tighter (more
coherent? more limited?) range but even there I see quite a reasonable
diversity. In the four Faber poets, for example, Oswald, Harsent,
O'Donoghue and Nagra I can see almost nothing in common.
To grasp the nettle, these bigger houses are
going to have the pick of a large proportion of published poets. (From this
it doesn't follow that they exercise their choice wisely.)
Another factor worth considering is that there is,
by choice or chance, a gravitation of poets from other houses towards these
one.
A quick scan of the list would paint a variegated
history of publication.
Duffy established her reputation with Anvil, then
moved to Penguin, before settling for Picador.
O'Donoghue ditto with Chatto & Windus - this is
his first 'collection' with Faber.
Harsent and Oswald were OUP.
O'Brien Bloodaxe, then OUP before
Picador.
Kinsella via a host - Carcanet, Bloodaxe, Salt,
Arc, Norton...
Burnside's first book was published by Carcanet,
his next by Secker & Warburg...
Only the younger poets represented (Morgan, Flynn
and Nagra) have stayed, so far, with their first publisher.
As for the range of the work, I couldn't say
without reading them and I certainly don't want to get into an argument about
their merits. But as for those binaries, I wouldn't reckon Kinsella would
welcome a mainstream tag. Nor, with respect to supposed 'stylistic
markers', would Nagra seem to me typical, nor for that matter Oswald or
Burnside or Harsent.
There might be other ways to look at the range.
Gender: 6 man, 4 women.
Age: youngest Flynn b.1974, oldest Harsent 1944.
Ethnicity: only Nagra who's not white.
Country of origin: 1 Northern Irish, 1 Irish, 2
Scottish, 1 Australian, 0 Welsh, 5 English.
Of the judges, 2 are Welsh, 1 Irish - and as I
noted, their own publishing houses are especially ill-represented.
Of course, there are all kinds of other, more
interesting things that could be said about the list, but there's enough
here to suggest why I didn't find the implication behind your first 'shortened'
list at all decisive.
Best,
Jamie
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Monday, October 24, 2011 10:22
PM
Subject: Re: T.S.Eliot shortlist
shortened
Ah, but don't you feel at all that the range of publishers is
disappointingly limited?
I've looked back at the last couple of years, and they're a little
better—a couple of Serens to set against the usual Fabers and Picadors--but
it's still a very narrow band. I'm pretty bored by all the talk of
binaries – and no doubt everyone else is as well, but sometimes….
T.S.Eliot judges shortened:
Carcanet
Bloodaxe
Dolmen/Anvil
Maybe it's best to read the contents not the
covers...?
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Monday, October 24, 2011 3:36
PM
Subject: T.S.Eliot shortlist
shortened
Faber
Faber
Faber
Faber
Cape
Picador
Cape
Bloodaxe
Picador
Picador
