A Question of Integrity

Judith Palmer, former Director of the Poetry Society, yesterday issued a lengthy statement outlining the background to her resignation and the subsequent furore and inglorious cheque-signing fest indulged in by the Poetry Society Board of Trustees.

It has become clear to me, from her account, which is freely available online, that the matter is a great deal more far-reaching in its implications than we previously considered. I urge all members to read it.

Here are some extracts which interested me particularly:

The Chair told me he’d been waiting until after the funding announcement to tell me about a proposal put to him by Fiona Sampson, the Editor of Poetry Review, a proposal that he’d been discussing with her since January without my knowledge. She requested a new working arrangement whereby she would reduce her days, work mainly from home, and report directly to the Board. I must emphasise that this was put forward as a permanent arrangement. It was initially communicated to me verbally and, a few days later, in writing.

The timing was completely unexpected. Although the relative integration / independence of the Society’s magazine Poetry Review within the Society’s activities had been a regular subject of debate throughout the Editor’s tenure, and long pre-dated my appointment, this had not been a recent subject of discussion.

In September 2008, before my time as Director of the Poetry Society, Fiona Sampson approached the Society’s Board of Trustees with a similar proposal. She requested that her fixed-term contract be made permanent and that the structure of the Society be altered to raise her status and allow her to report directly to the Board rather than continue to be managed by the Director. The Board rejected both suggestions (7 October 2008). The Arts Council was involved in the discussions, and supported the Board’s rejection of the proposal at a subsequent Board meeting I attended on 20 November 2008.

I queried with Peter Carpenter the timing of this revival of Ms Sampson’s proposal in 2011. We had only just submitted a detailed 4-year plan to the Arts Council that had been supported fully by the Board. The plan had reflected a fully-integrated Poetry Society, and this was the vision endorsed by the Arts Council. To make such a significant change now seemed to me both dishonest and dangerous. Our funding offer from the Arts Council remained only conditional.

Carpenter apologised, but explained that poets were putting pressure on him, the Board were going to split over it, and suggested that Ms Sampson would otherwise leave.

Later, there was also this:

Peter Carpenter confirmed he would “split off Poetry Review so it reports to me [Peter Carpenter]”. I feared this was the first step towards a much more profound separation of the Review from the Society.

 There was much more in Judith Palmer's statement. Please do read it.

But my chief reaction to the extracts above is, why have we had no public statement from the Editor of the Society's flagship magazine - expressing, for instance, some sadness or regret at how these events have driven the Society which funds her magazine to the potential brink of insolvency?

It must be clear to Fiona Sampson that she has lost public confidence over these and other recent revelations - now being widely discussed via email communications, social media and the national press (including this, new today) - and that her position at Poetry Review has become problematic, not least thanks to an email she sent out to a list of members of the Society immediately before the EGM last week, implying that all 'right-thinking' members should, like pro-Board poet Neil Rollinson, vote for the board, rather than against. Given the overwhelming majority who voted the opposite way at the EGM, I would suggest this is indicative of a basic mismatch in ideology and outlook between the current Editor and the membership at large. There is also the longer-term question of impartiality to be considered, regarding submissions to the magazine.

I wrote earlier on this blog about this campaign not being a witch-hunt, and I still agree with that standpoint. I would be perfectly satisfied with a public statement by Fiona Sampson which signalled some regret over what has happened and outlined her plans for the future with regards to the difficulties the Society is now facing. It is my sincere hope that one will be issued soon.

Books Just Arrived

Having a little spare cash after putting down the required deposit and whatnot for our new tenancy - starting next week - I decided to treat myself to some new books.

Well, I say new, but only one of them is genuinely new and that's Common Prayer by Poetry Review editor, Fiona Sampson (Carcanet Books, just out).

Some are copies of poetry books I've had out on loan from the library and want to actually own, like Don Paterson's delicately written Orpheus (Faber, 2006) and Vicki Feaver's The Book of Blood (Cape, 2006).

Interestingly, The Book of Blood was one of a number of possible titles for my own second collection, which eventually became Boudicca & Co. Vicki Feaver got there first on this occasion, but since I consider Boudicca & Co. an inspired choice of title, there can be no hard feelings!

:wry grin:

Also in this category is Paul Farley's excellent Tramp in Flames.

Yet another book, Peter Dickinson's Changes, is not poetry at all, but science fantasy: a trilogy of short fantasy novels I loved in my teens, now published as one volume by US publisher Dell. Merlin re-awakens and 'changes' Britain back into the Dark Ages, a land where modern machines are considered the work of the devil and those who try to use them are treated as witches. I'm looking forward to re-acquainting myself with the Changes trilogy this summer - as a break from the deadly serious work of poetry!

That only leaves two other books: Lavinia Greenlaw's Minsk (Faber, 2003) and Ian Duhig's The Lammas Hireling (Picador, also 2003). I've read neither of these before, though I have browsed Duhig's book in a branch of Waterstones, intrigued by the superb painting of a 'Hare' by Albrecht Durer on the cover, and put it down mentally on my list of books to be bought when I'd got enough in the bank. Me and hares ... suffice it to say, we go way back.

I haven't put links up for any of these, as I wouldn't have wanted to leave anyone out and there are rather too many for a quick blog entry. But I hope you google at least one or two of them, if you're interested in contemporary poetry, and maybe buy a few yourself. Unless you own them already, of course, in which case do leave a comment below to let me know your favourites or the most disappointing reads among those books mentioned here.

Packing up the house recently, I discovered that I own several hundred books of poetry published over the past few decades. I haven't managed to read them all, of course, though I've sampled most. Some I know intimately, and those are the books of poetry which have gone into my OPEN FIRST boxes during the packing process, the poems that sustain me both as a writer and as a person.

But it's an odd thing. The more contemporary poetry I read, the less I seem to know or really understand about poetry.

In that respect, at least, poetry is like the TARDIS in Doctor Who. It's bigger on the inside ...

Does the Male Muse exist?

Tomorrow morning, Tuesday 10th July, from 11.30am - 12.00 noon, you can catch My Male Muse on Radio 4. In this potentially controversial programme, "poet Clare Pollard dispels the popular female image of a muse. She argues that men can also be a source of beauty and inspiration, and contradicts poet Robert Graves, who famously claimed that the male muse doesn't exist."

The programme is produced by Clare Pollard and Tamysn Challenger. Other poets taking part will be Eva Salzman, Catherine Smith, Annie Freud, Melanie Challenger and Penelope Shuttle.

And as if the excitement of finding so many women poets on Radio 4 at once wasn't enough for one week, you can also listen to Fiona Sampson, poet and editor of Poetry Review, on Woman's Hour, Thursday July 12th between 10am and 10.45.

On that programme, Fiona will be reading from her brand-new poetry collection, just out from Carcanet, entitled Common Prayer. The programme will also feature discussions on the dreadful problem of endometriosis and 'how to moan without losing friends and alienating people'.

It could be worth my while to listen just for that last piece alone ...