One of the hardest things about growing up is having to learn about all the horrible things that happened before you were born: things you couldn’t have done anything about even had you been alive, which you weren’t; and things you may still have to clean up after.
One of the more depressing things I had to find out about when I “grew up” into poetry was the fabled Poetry Wars of the 1970s at the Poetry Society in London. I’ve tried to read Peter Barry’s book, Poetry Wars, which so many people assure me is both gripping and funny, but I failed to find it much more than pointlessly depressing. I might try it again.
So with what heartsinkingness did we awake to the news on May 21st that there is a new spot of bother down the PoSoc; that its director had resigned in what sounded like a pretty spectacular scene in leafy Betterton Street, though we were not to be told precisely how it went. The rumour mill was up to full capacity in no time, churning out details ever more alarming, whether true or untrue.
It was the stuff of situation comedy, or else a reality TV show. The director was followed in short succession by the financial officer, the education officer and the Society’s president, Jo Shapcott. The remaining staff are not permitted to say anything about what is happening; anecdotal reports that leak out come muffled in anonymity and provisos, and sound very unhappy, not least because the remaining inmates of the PoSoc are being functionally cut off from their peer group. It seems that we are indeed going to have to clean up again after a war which may, after all, like the Second World War, have its roots in the old one. It’s the same old story, after all: Cyril Connolly’s hyenas around a dried-up watering hole, trying to knock each other out of the way, one generation after the next, while what water there is seeps away into the earth…
There are a few facts, but no causal connections between them worth speaking of, without resorting to the anecdote mills – and it’s becoming hard to keep straight what you’re “supposed” to “know” and what you’re not. Let’s try:
The Poetry Society board had taken to holding meetings without informing or inviting the director… The editor of Poetry Review had requested to work directly to the board, and bypass the director. The board had agreed to this. (!) The editor of Poetry Review had taken legal steps to have her 3-year extended contract made permanent, and the membership were not informed of this change. There were personality clashes. There were procedural clashes. There is a newly approved Arts Council award which must be administered somehow. (Members do not seem to know what it is for.) There are debates around the mission of the PoSoc and how the money should be spent. How the magazine should be edited. How the membership should be treated. What the Poetry Society is for. Who the Poetry Society is for.
So debates are now raging like forest fires all over Poetry World. Amid them, camps are being struck, sides taken, lines drawn, enemies sworn – by the hardy few, and by Anonymous. Everyone remembers last time; no one wants to be the one standing when the music stops.
However, the Poetry Society is a publicly funded body, and also a members’ organisation. We are in a period of austerity and unprecedented cuts; public funds are more jealously guarded, regarded, rearguarded, now than in the 70s. And cash-strapped or precariously employed members are loath to see their money put to they wot not what use. Also, they like having a Poetry Society, and maybe they wish they had a bit more chance to be part of it.
Communication from the Poetry Society itself has amounted to one web page update, posted three weeks after the story broke, which said (over and over) “business as usual” (with a note at the end saying the president had resigned). As a person who has presided over corporate communications in times of much bigger crisis than this (by which I mean, likely to cause actual hardship to people) I’m not finding it a very impressive example of transparency – or indeed crisis management.
Such a statement clearly isn’t enough to give members that sense of security and reassurance you want when someone has a direct debit set up on your bank account.
With all this going on, and frankly without even any need to resort to all the personality-cult, power-cabal, coterie-mongering that’s been going round, there is every reason for members to call for an Extraordinary General Meeting, and ask the board to explain the situation.
That it has taken so long for this to happen can be summed up by an excellent note a fellow poet wrote on Facebook this morning (it’s also on a public message board, but I’m not using the poet’s name as s/he has decided to retire from the debate in public, due to being cited by one of the principles in an ancillary matter):
This situation has caused a big division among poets and, given the inevitable lack of clarity about what has occurred and what has caused it, many poets are undecided or unsure about whether to position themselves on either side of the argument. Many poets, poetry editors and arts administrators have expressed concern about the situation but, given the probability that other prominent poets, editors etc take an opposing view and feel the PS needs to change its working methods and aesthetics, people are wary about their names appearing on one team list in a tug of war.
Imagine you are a publisher or a poet who publicly declares on one side of the debate – would you not fear yourself or your writers being blackballed when one side prospers? Not just within the PS or PR, but in a wider sense – there are all too many precedents of rifts like this one – lesser ones most of them – having lasting effects on individuals, organisations and publishers with regard to funding, reviews, inclusion, awards and other aspects of our community.
So, inevitably, it has taken someone whose head is already above the parapet – Kate Clanchy, who organised a couple of famous multi-signatory letters to Poetry Review a couple of years ago, strongly criticising its reviewing practices – to start the call for petition signatures. (This is not the time or the place to reopen the debate about the two letters, by the way – I bring them up only to demonstrate that, cf. above, it took someone who had already burned their bridges to open the campaign.) The meeting will only be called if more than 10% of PoSoc members ask for it.
Email kateclanchy at gmail dot com to add your name to the petition.
Kate writes:
The petition will be a very simple one, I think. Something like:
We the undersigned, being 10% of the Membership of the Poetry Society, call on the Board to hold an Extraordinary General Meeting in order to discuss the recent resignations of the President, Director and Finance Officer of the Society.
No one needs to declare personal reasons for signing, or go into the details of the whole gruesome affaire, or agree with me on other issues : all they need do is agree that we have not been given enough information about important issues in a Society of which they are a member.
People are expressing a lot of anxiety about ‘blacklisting’ and ‘flak’: please re-assure everyone that I’ll just collect the names and put them forward when we have 340. I won’t expose anyone’s name or share contacts, either.
Why am I doing this? I just thought someone ought. I don’t have any extra secret info, and I’ve pasted my sole beef with the PS up on Carrie Etter’s blog [n.b., now deleted; it is the two letters as I've stated] so it is in the public domain and everyone knows about it. I may well not be the best person, especially as I am very afraid of facebook, blogs and anonymous stuff, and muddly at the best of times. I’m very willing to pass on the burden at any time.
And why am I writing this? you might well ask. I’ve kept my head down so far. I’m not keen on confrontation, I prefer to find things funny, and I can usually see the other guy’s side of the story. But I do feel strongly about fair play and plain dealing. And also about organisational culture – in any organisation – and how people are treated in the workplace. These ideas are massively reinforced by the Nolan Committee’s principles of public service, which I feel apply in this case, due to the funding structure and declared mission of the Poetry Society which is (now I come to type it here, I realise, a little light on particulars): “to advance the study, use and enjoyment of poetry.”
This blog post is not intended as a massive call to arms; I haven’t got it in for anyone, much good would it do me if I had. It’s an explicit, I hope, plea precisely to take the personalities out of it and deal with the issues that need addressing; they’re all fairly close to the surface, after all. People are concerned. Lots of people have been asking what’s going on, and I hope this blog post gathers that up to a certain extent. Carrie Etter has taken her post down, which said nothing but allowed a space for debate (and what a debate!), for the reasons above. I don’t want any of that here, either; I just hope you, whichever bit of the fence you sit on, near, beside or under, will email Kate Clanchy so we can all talk.
kateclanchy at gmail dot com.
See you round the watering hole at the meeting.
Dear Katy
This is a brilliant exposition and analysis of the current fiasco within the Poetry Society. I’d love to get involved but I just don’t know which side to join. Can’t you give me a heads-up?
Best wishes from Simon
No.
Thanks for this Katy, it was the clarity I needed. I’m re-joining the Poetry Society so I can be part of the debate and will be e-mailing Kate Clanchy.
All best
Roz
I like Cyril Connolly’s hyenas around a dried-up watering hole. It presents a strange contrast to the situation on this side of the Atlantic, where most of the arguing lately has to do with how the Poetry Foundation is spending the proceeds of a $200,000,000 windfall (“are they giving it to the right people? why not me! me! me!” is the gist of it). It’s as if our dried up watering hole had suddenly started spurting jets of pink champagne, even as the publicly funded landscape around us grows ever drier.
Best,
Bob
Thank you for this, Katy. I hope you don’t mind, I’ve quoted part of it in a mail to the Buzzwords mailing list, asking members amongst them to email kate.
I’d not renewed my membership partly because I’m disgusted with what’s going on but this latest fiasco prompts me to rejoin.
For those making up their minds where they stand, the silence (gagging orders?) the Board is imposing speaks volumes.
Also, in the current climate of fund cutting, the Poetry Society received a hefty grant…..under the Director and others who’ve just resigned, and such en masse departures alone would give one an indication of things nor right in state of Denmark.
Questions should be asked about policy and organisational changes the Poetry Society is enacting following receipt of this grant, and which may even endanger it. Regardless, one must ask about the timing of these: why they weren’t raised earlier, during application process. Again, we have a picture of an atmosphere of secrecy. There is much more one can say about this dismal state of affairs.
I just want to a add a little to Katy’s brilliant post.
First of all, as far as I know, there isn’t a ‘rift ‘ among poets or in the Poetry Society, and clearly defined ‘sides’: there is just a baffling, miserable mess. On the list for the requistion there are the most surprisingly diverse people, individuals from all the factions of the Poetry world, who simply want to know what has happened and how to move forward.
I’ve quarrelled with a quite a few of the people on the list, in fact, or at any rate, I have publically disagreed with them. Which brings me to my second point: in the Poetry world, where words mean so much, it is very easy to feel that an intellectual dispute is the same as a personal one, and that grudges will held and reputations spoiled, even over a short review or careless blog post. In those terms, as Katy says, I certainly am a person who has burned her bridges, and has ‘ a head above the parapet’.
The funny thing is though, I haven’t been shot. and I still seem to be able to go everywhere. My work is still published and anthologised, I read and teach, I am still invited to parties. If I don’t go, it’s because of the kids. The black-balling and flak, in short, are much less than they are made out to be, and individuals on the whole are much less grudging and more fair-minded than one fears. The requistion asks for a debate, and I am confident that poets, for all our dire reputation, can have a good one.
I’m bemused by all this but as a paying member I would like to know what’s going on. Much more importantly, though, I want the Poetry Society to be what I always thought it was: a place where poetry can be enjoyed and shared with other poets and a widening audience; where it can be published, promoted and perhaps do a little good in the world; and where it may prosper to everyone’s benefit – poets, lovers of poetry and people who might not otherwise engage with poetry at all.
Excellent summary. I hope the burning questions from many poets will be addressed…soon.
It’s all just politics, innit?
Hello Junkets, I’m not quite sure what you mean by that… Politics is quite important, isn’t it? As I’ve said before, this seems to be a governance issue, as it seems (from the little information that we have) that there may have been some confusion as to the remit and function of a board of trustees… Principles of governance and public service are the guide; any dabbling in personality politics is a distraction from the real issue.
Is it too much to ask that, now that there’s going to be a meeting, the tone of all this could become a bit less spiteful? That horrible Hitler thing is one example. For some reason, the people being attacked seem to feel unable to reply. I hope the reasons for this will emerge.
I’ll just add that I’ve been struck by the dignified silence of all the principals. It’s only the board that has been silent when it should have spoken…
Thanks. I didn’t mean that you personally had said anything spiteful, and I’m very glad you didn’t see fit to circulate the Hitler thing. My reason for posting to your blog was that several people have identified it as one of the main places where people are discussing this dispute. I’m barely involved in these arguments (I’m not a member of the society), but I have friends on both sides, if there can be said to be clear ‘sides’, and I’m disturbed at the tone and the imbalance of what I’ve seen. That awful Hitler tape seemed to be a sign that this was getting worse. As far as I can make out, the crisis seems partly to be about a question of populism versus high culture, which is presumably a long-running argument, though from what I’ve seen a very ill-defined one, and partly about a particular boardroom dispute that no one
not on the board can really feel confident they understand. Yet people have been jumping to conclusions very freely. A couple of days ago Roddy Lumsden on Chris Hamilton Emery’s blog declared it to be a fact that ‘a faction on the board, acting on outside influences, usurped the Director and acted improperly’. When I asked him how he knew these things to be ‘facts’, he couldn’t or wouldn’t answer. That’s very telling. All I’m saying is that we should remember that there is doubtless more than one side to the boardroom dispute. Most people blogging seem to be assuming that the Director was in the right. Why should that be assumed? I wish people would conduct these discussions without any presumption that either side is guilty. If the underlying question is the populism versus high culture one, let’s debate that openly. And I would ask people not to go to the meeting with their minds already made up.
Very disappointed at the level of invective at yesterday’s EGM – Dryden and Pope would have risen to the occasion better .. it quickly became apparent that, despite denials by them and others, this was all caused by two women falling out – Fiona Sampson and Judith Palmer – and the Board, hoping to help Palmer, who they stated at the meeting was ‘stressed’, instead clumsily made the whole thing much worse by allowing Sampson to work from home and be managed by the Board – to get away away presumably from her enemy. This sort of problem arises all the time in businesses, sports teams, Staff rooms etc and has to be sorted out – somehow the Board have totally failed to do this. Palmer resigned, threatened to sue and the Board went into panic mode, issuing threats (according to Anne Marie Fyffe and Kate Clanchy at the meeting) locking Palmer out of her office, cutting off email, spending £20,000 on legal advice with Murdoch’s solicitors (which was to ‘keep quiet’ hence rumours) etc. Plenty here for murderous invective and cutting wit in the Royal College of Surgeons, the apt venue – but instead we got a lot of moaning, grand-standing, time- wasting and confusion – the meeting was as mismanaged as the PS. Despite voting strongly in favour of Clanchy’s no-confidence motion the meeting then was underwhelmed by her attempt to foist a load of co-opted Directors onto the Board only one of whom bothered to turn up! The acting Director pointed out that PS Board meetings were held at 5pm on weekdays in London – the suggested co-optees mainly lived hundreds of miles away. One other thing – looking at this assembly indicated that the PS membership is 99.5% white, aged, bearded and suited .. a recipe for certain death soon .. CHRIS HARDY (white aged etc)
You mention the problem being a fight between two “women” and, yes, it appears that the Board and indeed the Guardian article would have one believe the problem is some ‘cat-fight” between them which is a complete deflection from taking responsibility for example of 24,000 expenditure which apparently they can just get away with.
That important matter is the the responsibility of the “Board”a and speaking of them, your comment hits precisely on questions I’ve posted elsewhere: since Sampson and Palmer are named why aren’t the board members whose behvaiour is so questionable, as outlined in Ranford’s statement. What, they enjoy the privilege of anonymity but Sampson and Palmer do not? And this doesn’t stink to high heaven to anyone else?!
And we’re meant to base our assessment on matters according to those now proven to have been economical with the truth? But this is exactly why pays PR people and faciliators and lawyers to give the presentation one wants and, as I said elsewhere, it does appear their 24,000 was well spent indeed if already this the general view of matters, soon perhaps to harden into reality. I am profoundly depressed by all this and seeing a comment like this confirms my worst fears.