Tuesday, July 05, 2011

The Red Wheelbarrow Gang

Photo: Roderic Vincent
Today, at 3.30pm, poetry history will be has now been made. [Updated with photo at 16.40]

A shiny red wheelbarrow - thanks for the concept, William Carlos Williams! - will arrive at the Poetry Society HQ in Betterton Street, London, this afternoon.

It will contain the following official requisition to which well over 400 Poetry Society members have now put their names:
We, the undersigned, constituting as we believe ten percent of the members of The Poetry Society, having learnt of the resignation of the Chair of the Board of Trustees and the Director, the Finance Manager and the President of the Society, and in order to determine whether, in these extraordinary circumstances, the Board of Trustees has our continuing confidence, require the Board to hold an Extraordinary General Meeting, with a Chair elected by that meeting, to provide an explanation of the practices, policies and changes in policy which led to these resignations, and to answer questions on this matter from the floor. In order to avoid unreasonable expense to the Society, we require the Extraordinary General Meeting to be held before or instead of the General Meeting called by the Society at 2pm on 22 July 2011.
Feeling is strong, expectation is high. If you haven't a clue what all this kerfuffle is about, Ms Baroque in Hackney has made several good stabs at an overview.

To join the intrepid gang delivering this historic demand, meet up at the Cross Keys pub in Endell Street at 3.15pm today, Tuesday 5th July 2011.

2 comments:

Poetry Pleases! said...

Dear Jane

I'm dying to know what happened next. Please don't keep it to yourself! Living near Swansea, I'm several hundred miles away from the epicentre of British poetry.

Best wishes from Simon

Jane Holland said...

Sorry!

The wheelbarrow arrived, the requisition was duly delivered, plums were handed round - an in-joke: see William Carlos Williams again - and an official reply was sent to Kate Clanchy.

I've read it briefly but not with huge amounts of attention, as I'm off to a 4-day conference tomorrow and have masses to do today. But basically they are looking into drafting an Agenda that will fit with our demands as a group and more talks will follow on whether we have that EGM before or at the same as/just before the GM on 22nd July. Which I am hoping to attend if that is indeed the date for our EGM.

Jx