Alison wrote:
'David - as a Salt poet and as an Australian it's a little difficult
for me to enter this - but this seems an extraordinary statement.
Such things could equally be said about any number of small English
poetry presses that exclusively publish English poets. Are they, for
their lack of Faber-type weight and reviews and bookshop presence
(which we all know is an increasing problem for poetry publishers,
there and here), "tangential" to English poetry as well?'
Alison
my 'tangential' wasn't a derogatory statement. This matter came up as a
sideline to my remarks about the +prevailing+ tenor of poetry in the UK, and
the emphasis is important. I'm certainly not trying to belittle what SALT
does, nor would I descry those small presses, although their position is
'marginal', rather than 'tangential' (!). Now you know perfectly well that I
am open to poetry from anywhere, all I was trying to talk about was the
situation in England as it seems from the 'inside', just as Jon I think was
saying how it is in the US. There are always people trying to open things
out, but the pressure from whatnot and God knows what is always there to
frustrate that. Making a few comments like mine in e-mail format is always
going to involve simplifications, one would need an essay-length treatment
of the sociology and economics of poetry just in the UK to tackle the
questions properly.As I said previously, the most encouraging thing
happening in poetry here is the opening out that the new regime has started
in Poetry Review, I just hope they are allowed to continue because the
ripples from that could have a real effect.
Best
Dave
David Bircumshaw
Leicester, England
Home Page
A Chide's Alphabet
Painting Without Numbers
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.bircumshaw/index.htm
----- Original Message -----
From: "Alison Croggon" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, December 30, 2002 1:19 AM
Subject: Re: A Chide's Alphabet
At 10:56 PM +0000 12/29/02, david.bircumshaw wrote:
>But in a peculiar
>kind of way SALT doesn't seem 'present' in the UK in the way that more
>'established' lists like Picador or Faber or Bloodaxe are. I find myself
>thinking of it as an Australian list that also publishes UK poets, not that
>that's a criticism, I hasten to add. Perhaps it's because they rely so much
>on Print On Demand so it's rare to see SALT titles in bookshops (in fact
the
>only place I have seen their titles in bookshops has been in Australia) and
>as far as I can gather they don't get much in the way of reviews over here.
David - as a Salt poet and as an Australian it's a little difficult
for me to enter this - but this seems an extraordinary statement.
Such things could equally be said about any number of small English
poetry presses that exclusively publish English poets. Are they, for
their lack of Faber-type weight and reviews and bookshop presence
(which we all know is an increasing problem for poetry publishers,
there and here), "tangential" to English poetry as well?
Best
A
--
Alison Croggon
Home page
http://www.users.bigpond.com/acroggon/
Masthead Online
http://au.geocities.com/masthead_2/
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