Irish-Language Poets Brought to Book

by Hurler on the Ditch Mon Aug 24, 2009 19:00

Keep it up.

by book borrower Wed Aug 26, 2009 09:34

More people write poetry, sometimes occasionally, in Ireland than actually buy poetry publications. So for example, the print run of an issue of Poetry Ireland review is below 2,000 copies, yet the editor receives sometimes more than 5,000 poems for consideration. Anytime a poetry competition is announced there is a tsunami of manuscripts submitted. Only a fraction of the items submitted for consideration can ever be published. A similar situation exists in North America.

In Ireland a new book of poems by a young and as yet unrecognized poet may have a print run of 500 copies. The poet will be lucky if 300 copies are sold within two years. So we have the funny situation that some pillars of society pay public tribute to poetry as something important in our culture, and the Arts Council/Comhairle Ealaion gives grants towards the costs of publishing limited editions, yet the book buying public out there is rather unadventurous and only buys, sometimes as Christmas presents, collections of internationally established poets like Seamus Heaney.

Poetry slams, literary festival readings and scarce poetry readings on the Late Late Show by telegenic performers like Brendan Kennelly or Paul Durcan do draw a certain public interest. Yet most books of poetry don't sell.

Any suggestions for improving the situation?

Any suggestions for improving the public perception of literary magazines and boosting their sales?

"Literary Ireland" has been a selling point in tourist board promotion of Ireland for many years, yet the condition of Irish magazine and book publishing is not healthy.

Lyrics writers of folk and pop songs are more likely to earn a comfortable living that writers of serious poetry. Chicklit airport novels grandly outsell serious literary novels. Literary Ireland, how are you?

by Fred Johnston Wed Aug 26, 2009 13:36 sylfredcar at iolfree dot ie

Excellent question and not easy to answer. In the UK, one becomes a best-selling poet by in fact selling in numbers that are quite small. It is probably unlikely that an enormous audience for poetry will develop in our current electronic society; certainly in the 19th century poetry collections - look at 'Childe Harold', for instance - were best-sellers by anyone's measure, selling hundreds of copies within a couple of days of publication. And Byron was arguably the first literary 'super-star.' That won't happen again, and we should perhaps be thankful for the interest generated by readings, 'slams,' writers' groups, festivals and so on. Giving Creative Writing classes, I am often told by participants that the way they were introduced to poetry at school coloured their sensibility to poetry for the rest of their lives. This is probably true for most people of my generation. Yet it is worth remembering that Heaney, Muldoon, and the best of the English contemporary poets emerged from a time when there were no poets' visits to schools, no 'slams,' and the general notion was that most poets were dead or in some other manner removed from the real world; this was true certainly if one were at secondary school in the 'Sixties, as I was. So is there a solution? I think one major problem we have - and no doubt this will invite all manner of put-down - is that people have become, paradoxically, used to the idea that 'anyone can be a poet,' a facile nonsense bruited about in creative writing classes by people who should know better, and consequently there is a belief that being published as a poet is a right! Too much bad poetry is too readily published with the assistance of Arts Council grant-aid and this is true here and in Britain. Would I, were I seventeen again, really believe that poetry was important? I really can't say. I imagine one is either interested in poetry or one is not.

by book borrower Wed Aug 26, 2009 15:59

I take the point that not "anybody can write poetry" and, being an educational conservative, disagree with teachers who encourage young pupils to write spontaneous lines of ' verse' during English lessons. I think the old method of getting young ones to memorise from poetry anthologies can benefit children linguistically and in terms of emotional sensibility. Over thirty years ago the teaching of literature was enhanced in Irish schools when Augustine Martin brought out approved anthologies of (a) traditional and modern verse, some of it twentieth century Irish and, (b) selected short stories of twentieth century international and Irish writers. Both anthologies carried the effective message that writing is a tradition that is continued into the present by living writers who need to earn a living.

I'd say that revamped and updated anthologies along the lines of Augustine Martin's groundbreaking efforts are needed now, and I'd urge the need for an anthology of old and modern essays. The essay as a literary form covering many topics serious and light is something that seems to have been downplayed in schools literature curricula in recent decades. The crystallisation of personal thoughts is an important intellectual skill; the ability to express oneself intelligibly and persuasively in well chosen words and sound punctuation, are skills that can be taught in the classroom and can be carried into all walks of life after school. Goodness knows that intolerably high levels of semi-literacy are currently emerging from contemporary schooling. The figure of 23 per cent functional illiteracy has been quoted in the media.

But I still leave my original questions open for other replies. What can be done to promote more buying of poetry books by the reading public? And how can the general public be helped to take more interest in literary magazines?

by Fred Johnston - Western Writers' Centre - Ionad Scribhneoiri Chaitlin Maude Wed Aug 26, 2009 17:05

The Arts Council have become less and less interested in literature, which is a pity, because with a little more money poured into the publishing industry here it is just possible that poetry could be marketed in a different and more friendly way.

by Dorothy Gale Wed Aug 26, 2009 17:17

The Arts Council has no problem finding money to give to circus clowns who abuse animals but they will not support literature. They also have plenty of of dosh for those who make strange noises on pipes and foe those who lep around like mad march hares and call it Irish dancing.

The Arts Council effectively shut down the Dublin Writers Centre and seems intent on starving writers centres around the country of resources.

by Fred Johnston Wed Aug 26, 2009 20:23

Similarly they withdrew programme funding from the Western Writers' Centre in Galway, just after we had received a major Irish-language award, and on foot of the Council being sent, anonymously of course, a set of letters critical of the arts in Galway, which I had published in local papers. I was accused of being 'divisive.' At the same time, the Arts Council has made silly statements about how much the arts mean to our image abroad, and so on. The recent farce, documented in the current issue of The Phoenix, says it all for their commitment to literature!

by Gerontius Sun Sep 06, 2009 14:23

The Arts Council has already circulated written 'warnings' to various arts' groups saying that they can expect even less money for grant-support in the coming rounds. Similar letters circulated last year were a precursor to the shutting down of theatres, opera groups and writers' centres, as well as the killing off of various projects.
Presumably John 'Six Figures' O'Donoghue is to be asked to hand back some of the expenses he used on himself while he was in charge of the Department of Arts and Disappointment. He could do it publicly as a piece of performance art and even get a grant for it. But the Council will, as befits them, toe the Fianna Fáil line and attack the most vulnerable projects and companies (which are usually the most innovative, of course), refuse to 'comment on individual cases' if the Press come snooping, and hand over the job of deflecting irate arts-practitioners to the secretaries they call arts' officers. Beats using the poor things to send out inaccurate Council press releases which they later have to amend, but 'nuff said, writers.
It should be added that, as last year, there will be those organisations who may actually see a rise in or sustaining of their grant, in spite of all of these warning letters.
Individual council officers will get very uppity if they are asked why this is so and use the 'individual cases' defence cited above. Enter the Freedom of Information Act - which arts' organisations should use more than they do. The FOI will not of course indicate which organisations are simply favoured by the Council - whatever the economic climate - and which are not.