Publishing opportunities for Black and Asian poets

www.freeverse.org.uk

Editor: Danuta Kean (danutakean@mac.com)

Project Management: Nick Murza and Emma Hewett (Spread the Word)

Quantitative Research and Data Analysis: Melanie Larsen, Nick Murza

Contributors: Katy Massey, Valerie Mason-John, Daljit Nagra,Alison Solomon, Kadija George Sesay

Poetry Editors: Bernardine Evaristo, Moniza Alvi

Special thanks to: Ruth Borthwick, Bernardine Evaristo, Kate Griffin, Moniza Alvi, and Jane Stubbs and all at Spread the Word

Advisory panel: Moniza Alvi, Gina Antchandie, Jenny Attala, Ruth Borthwick, Bernardine Evaristo, Kate Griffin, Lucy Hutton, Ann Kellaway, Nick McDowell, Jules Mann, Jane Stubbs, Emma Turnbull

Design: Lambeth Communications and Consultation

Print: Fox Print

Produced by: Spread the Word

77 Lambeth Walk, London SE11 6DXTel: 020 7735 3111www.spreadtheword.org.ukwww.freeverse.org.uk

Research and Report commissioned by Arts Council England, Scottish Arts Council, and Arts Council of Wales

www.artscouncil.org.ukwww.scottisharts.org.ukwww.artswales.org.uk

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INTRODUCTION

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The start of something... Poetry lays claim to be thevoice of a nation’s soul. To achieve that status, itmust reflect the multitudeof communities that makeup that nation.

On the UK performance circuit that isnot an issue; Black and Asian poets arewell represented. But when it comes topoetry publishing, minority ethnic poetsstruggle to be read and, as the printedword is what lasts, remembered.

If you doubt that their voices areunread, then consider this: when theinitial list for the Next Generation Poetswas drawn up there were no Black orAsian faces on it, leading the judges tosend out a frantic call for minority ethnicnames to be submitted. Their initialomission did not indicate a lack of poetic ability among Black and Asiancommunities. Quite the contrary, thesecommunities are rich with talent from

John Siddique and Moniza Alvi, toImtiaz Dharker to Daljit Nagra.

This is a far cry from the 1980s, whenpoetry publishers were making greatstrides towards cultural diversity withsuch names as John Agard, BenjaminZephaniah, and Grace Nichols. So whathas gone wrong in the 21st Century?Finding the answer to that question –and what can be done to reverse thesituation – is the inspiration behindFree Verse. This report is the culminationof a year of research by Spread theWord to discover the barriers to beingpublished and how poets and publisherscan be brought back together.

So will Free Verse achieve anythingconcrete? Yes. Two years ago I edited areport for the Arts Council’s decibelinitiative aimed at promoting culturaldiversity in the arts. In Full Colourrevealed the appalling lack of diversitywithin publishing houses, and that thehandful of Black and Asian peopleemployed in the sector not only felt

marginalised, but were victims of aninsidious institutional racism.

In Full Colour was not about merelyreporting the situation. It was aboutpromoting change, and since its publication book publishers haveembraced myriad initiatives from graduate recruitment schemes anddiversity training to the creation ofDipNet, a networking organisation forBlack and Asian publishers. Change has come to that industry.

Free Verse aims to promote similar concrete and cultural changes withinthe poetry world. As this report reveals,poets and publishers have the sameresolution for change as UK book publishers and authors did two yearsago. That is why I am optimistic aboutthe impact of Free Verse, because that willingness is what gets results.

Danuta KeanEditor, Free Verse

CONTENTS

4 The results: the results of the first ever survey into opportunities for Black and Asian poets.

6 The sound barrier:minority ethnic poets arebreaking through on thestage but not the page.

10 Come the revolution:what is stopping poetrypublishers publishing more minority ethnicpoets?

14 Head to head: writerBernardine Evaristo andpublisher Neil Astleydebate the issues.

18 Get with the programme: how do youfind and keep a mentor?

20 Just rewards: how poetsmake ends meet.

23 Read then write:Faber’s Paul Keegan and Carcanet’s MichaelSchmidt reveal the recipefor getting spotted.

24 The prize guys: where do you go to get funding?

26 The road ahead:Danuta Kean summarisesthe key recommendationsfrom the Free Verse report.

SURVEY ~ Only 8% of Black and Asian poets surveyed were published by mainstream presses

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The resultsDanuta Kean andMelanie Larsen revealthe results of the first survey into opportunitiesfor Black and Asian poetsin the UK.

Black and Asian poets in the UK areoptimistic. Few may have made it to thepage, but they are convinced they will.In the first ever nationwide survey of itskind, 50% of the Black and Asian poetssurveyed expected to achieve ambitionsranging from publishing a collection ofpoetry to achieving a national or international reputation for their work.

Not that the poets involved were unrealistic. They were keenly aware ofthe barriers to publication. Almost half(43%) regarded opportunities for themas either poor or very poor, compared to12% who regarded opportunities asgood or very good.

Racism was not blamed for this lack ofopportunity. Only 7% cited prejudice orracism as a barrier. Though respondentsto the survey did not blame overtracism for the under-representation ofBlack and Asian poets on the page,they did regard poetry publishing asunsupportive of minority ethnic talent.

There was a strong sense amongrespondents that there needs to be ashift in awareness and that minorityethnic communities should be betterrepresented in poetry publishing thanthey are at present. Three things were

singled out as critical for more Blackand Asian poets to be published: 61%said the market needed to be developed; 60% said poetry by Blackand Asian poets should have a higherprofile on the National Curriculum; and 56% believed that if publishersemployed more Black and Asian staff,more Black and Asian poets would be published.

Though getting published was high onthe agenda, the poets surveyed wererealistic about the financial returns theycould expect from their writing.

Only a tiny handful had made moneyfrom their poetry in the past year. Overthe same period, only 5% said poetrywas their chief source of income, compared to 23% who made no moneyfrom their work and 6% who earnedbetween £1,001 and £2,500. Only 9%earned more than £2,500, while 57%did not answer the question.

Though almost half (45%) wished tomake poetry their prime source ofincome, only 23% actually expected torealise this dream. A further 23% didnot see money as a priority.

These are realistic expectations, and maybe assumed to mirror the experiencesof white poets. Though no statistics areavailable for white poets, it is unlikelymany earn enough to live by poetryalone. Sales of literature and poetry arein freefall and account for less than 1.7%of the total book market, according toNielsen BookScan, which collates salesdata from book retailers.

The survey bore out the assumptionthat Black and Asian poets are betterrepresented on the stage than they areon the page. The majority of respondentswere writing both for performance andthe page, with only 31% writing exclusively for the page.

When measured against outlets fortheir work, the survey found 31% hadbeen paid for performances, 34% hadperformed their work free and 31% usedworkshops as an outlet. In contrast only28% had been published in book form.The arrival of the internet has opened upnew publishing opportunities for Blackand Asian poets, 28% of respondentshad been published on the net. However26% had no outlet for their work.

That internet publishing is such a significant outlet should raise alarmbells. Though there are many good,legitimate presses using the internet tobypass retailers and find readers, oldfashioned vanity presses, offering noeditorial guidance or development inreturn for the fees they charge writers,are exploiting the frustrations faced bywriters. As the number of internet-published poets is likely to rise, guidance is needed on the minimumservice poets should expect from theirinternet publishers.

The number of Black and Asian poetspublished by major publishers was small,only 8% (see graph, Who publishesminority ethnic poets?). Of those whohad been published, mainstream presses were responsible for publishing

30% of the poets, while 25% were published elsewhere. Excluding the 2%who had self-published only (in total 13%had self-published), 55% of respondentshad seen their work in print.

As with all writers, perseverance pays,and of those who were published activesubmission (14%) or competitions (11%)were cited as the main ways theygained exposure. The poets had a betterthan expected hit rate. Of those whohad been published 39% submitted theirwork only four times before succeeding,while 8% had tried between five andnine times and 10% more than that.

Networking between minority ethnicpoets and mainstream presses waspoor, a finding born out in interviewswith poets and presses (see featurespages 6 and 9). Only 6% achieved publication through personal contacts.

This finding contrasted sharply with thesurveyed poets; belief that knowing theright people was key to getting intoprint. Of those published, 41% saidtheir peers were the most importantfactor in getting published, 37% citedcontacts and 28% a mentor.

Again few respondents cited prejudiceor racism as reasons that their workhad been rejected, though publishers’rejection slips threw little light ontowhy their poetry was not accepted.Publishers’ most common stated reason for rejecting poets’ work was that it did not fit their lists (19%),while 8% were told the subject matter was not suitable for their list.

Networking between minority ethnic poets and the mainstream presses was poor ~ SURVEY

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In a tiny handful of cases, 6%, poetswere told that their work was “too culturally specific”.

Despite the tough publishing environment, the poets surveyed provedto be determined to fulfil their dreams.Black and Asian poets are not willing tosit back and wait for it to happen. Theyare actively seeking opportunities,which is why they are optimistic thatthey will make it eventually.

Training is important to the overwhelming majority. 73% havealready undertaken some form of training, though a bedrock (27%) ofrespondents were resistant to outsideinfluences. These poets regarded training as a threat to their developing adistinct voice. While such self-belief isimportant, poets need to realise thattheir work cannot develop in a vacuumand such insularity may be the chiefreason they are finding it hard to getrecognition (see feature page 10).

The optimism of Britain’s Black andAsian poets is matched by keen practicality, which is why support forcareer development was top of theagenda for the poets surveyed. How this support is provided needs to becentral to the debate that should followthis report. For the surveyed poets 38%want financial support, 27% want networking opportunities and 28% want to work with a mentor. These areachievable, concrete goals that poetsand publishers should regard with equal optimism.•

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10% 9% 49% 15% 17%Become established poet

7% 23% 31% 10% 29%Become established performance poet

30% 6% 34% 7% 23%Work published in anthology

11% 4% 57% 18% 10%Collection of work published

5% 10% 50% 16% 19%Develop national/international profile

13% 15% 31% 17% 24%Win competition/award

15% 19% 26% 8% 32%Teach creative writing

15% 10% 42% 14% 19%Have work read on TV/radio

13% 7% 46% 14% 14%Have work published innewspapers/magazines

5% 23% 23% 22% 27%Have poetry as the main source of income

Already achieved

Not a priority/not interested

Aim to achieve and expect to

Aim to achieve and don’t expect to

No response

Published by major/independent publisher

Published by non-mainstream/specialist publisher

Self published

Never been published

25%30%42%3%

Ambitions and expectations

Who publishes minority ethnic poets?

POETS ~ ‘Why do the big poetry publishers have so few Black and Asian poets on their lists?’ Shanta Acharya asks

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The sound barrierBlack and Asian poets arebreaking through on theperformance circuit butnot on the page. DanutaKean investigates why.

In capital letters usually associatedwith Angry of Middle England, one publisher scrawled across the ArtsCouncil/Spread the Word survey intopublishing opportunities for Black andAsian poets: “This is a racist survey.”

By merely asking minority ethnic poets:“How is it for you?” the survey hadpushed the retired editor’s nuclear button: “If you conducted this survey on

behalf of white British poets you’d betaken to court.”

But if, as she forthrightly claims, poetrypublishers are “colour blind”, why is solittle of what they publish by Black orAsian writers?

If presses are “colour blind”, to use herphrase, and, as we know from the performance circuit, there is a thrivingcommunity of minority ethnic poets outthere, why are more not making it tothe page?

It is a question minority ethnic poetsare asking. “Why do the big poetry publishers have so few Black and Asianpoets on their lists?” asks Indian poetShanta Acharya. Though Acharya is anon-the-page veteran – her collection

Looking In, Looking Out was publishedby Headland last June – she is painfullyaware that hers is a rare voice. “When I look at their lists, I only see a handfulof minority ethnic poets. They havetheir token Black or Asian people – oneor two names.”

Law of averagesIf publishers are, as they claim, choosing according to quality not ethnicity, the law of averages implies aproportion of BME (Black and MinorityEthnic) poets should be picked for publication. But publisher after publisher,both large and small, admits their list isoverwhelmingly white.

6

CHOMAN HARDI

THE PENELOPES OF MY HOMELAND(for the 50,000 widows of Anfal)

Years and years of silent labour

the Penelopes of my homeland

wove their own and their children’s shrouds

without a sign of Odysseus returning.

Years and years of widowhood they lived

without realising, without ever thinking

that their dream was dead the day it was dreamt,

that their colourful future was all in the past,

that they had lived their destinies

and their was nothing else to live through.

Years and years of avoiding despair, not giving up,

holding on to hopes raised by palm-readers,

holding on to the wishful dreams of the nights

and to the just God

who does not allow such nightmares to continue.

Years and years of raising more Penelopes and

more Odysseuses

the waiting mothers of my homeland grew old and older

without ever knowing that they were waiting

without ever knowing that they should stop waiting.

Years and years of youth that was there and

went unnoticed

of passionate love that wasn’t made

of no knocking on the door after midnight

returning from very long journey.

The Penelopes of my homeland died slowly

carrying their dreams into their graves,

leaving more Penelopes to take their place.

‘...of passionate love that wasn’t made’ ~ POEM

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When the influential Next GenerationPoets list was compiled, the shockingrealisation that it contained no Black orAsian faces caused the organisers tocall presses and ask them to submitwork by minority ethnic writers.

It is as though a synapse link is missing.The majority of publishers answeringthe survey desire more representativelists and believe there are BME poetsworthy of publication, but somehow thatis not happening (see Come the revolution, page 9). Good intentions havegone awry and poets’ ambitions andpublishers’ desires are not producingresults. Clearly something is wrong.

Explicit racism is not to blame. No poetreported aggressively racist treatment.But many experienced something moresubtle. It manifests itself when poetsare asked to represent “the BlackVoice” at events, as if one experiencerepresents all Black people, or, as happened to Mimi Khalvati, when rejection slips state the publisher“already has one poet to represent theAsian voice”. Khalvati recalls: “It wasridiculous, especially as the [other] person’s work was so unlike my own.”

The values that anger Khalvati aredepressingly prevalent in poetry circles,says up and coming poet Daljit Nagra,who is to be published by Faber thisyear. “Magazine editors have sometimesdescribed my poems as ‘exotic’. I findthis offensive. Major publishers havetold me that my work is ‘not for us’. Idon’t know what this means. Or theyhave said my range is ‘too narrow’. Mysuspicion is that they are referring tomy Asian content and not my style.”

Behind the good intentions, clumsycomments betray far from “colourblind” values.

Could the ogre of institutionalisedracism be at work in poetry publishing?Could the frustration voiced by themajority of poets spoken to for this survey be the result of cultural barriers– as invisible to publishers as they are frustrating to poets – that limit accessto networks, mentors and role models ineducation and the critical establishment?

Cardiff-based Leon Charles, 49, a poetand rap artist working in communityand schools projects, says the rot ofexclusion sets in early for minority ethnic students. “It would have beengreat to have poetry to read at schoolthat was by Black poets,” he says.

Though there are more Black and Asianvoices are on the curriculum, heobserves they tend to be in the EnglishLanguage rather than Literature sectionof the syllabus. This effectively separates minority ethnic poets fromthe literary canon, as if what is interesting about them is their use oflanguage rather than the universality oftheir message. Charles was not the onlyone to ask: “Why are white peopleregarded as the only ones able to makeuniversal observations?”

A certain voiceThe damage done to emerging BMEpoets is subtle, he says. By not seeingtheir reflection in the poetry read atschool, a perception, however misguided,develops that published poetry has “acertain voice” – a white voice with aEuropean accent. “It implies that poetryhas to fulfil a certain criteria that is aboutspeaking in the Queen’s English, staccatoand regimented,” Charles adds.

Too often, he believes, poetry editors donot understand Black poets and dismisstheir work as rap with little artisticmerit and nothing profound to say. ä

POETS ~ ‘During Black History Month, everybody gets work’ Sundra

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“We have some awesome poets in therap world, but they are put in some kindof cultural cul-de-sac, as if all we haveto say is about ‘gangsta’ and ‘niggas’.”

Hertfordshire-based poet CatherineBoldeau has first hand experience ofthis stereotyping in education. “Blackand Asian writing is not always appreciated by people in higher education,” she says. “I started anEnglish degree and on the course studied Black poetry. All my classmateswere white and they thought ‘dub poetry’was rubbish. I spent nearly an hourexplaining its thoughts and sentiments.It was very embarrassing.”

It is not only in education that minorityethnic poets feel marginalised. Toooften it is first on the list of criteriaused by editors to judge BME poets’work, whether their work reflects theirethnicity or not, claims established poetJohn Siddique of Hebdon Bridge. “Myethnicity should be third on the list ofrelevance in judging my work. It has itsplace, but not at the top of the list.”

More than once Siddique, whose latestcollection The Prize is published by TheRialto, has fought editors’ selections ofhis poetry. “Even though I have writtenabout the struggle for identity it is onlya fortieth of what I write.” He recalls:“One editor’s choice was very ‘ethnic’. I fought tooth and nail to get most ofthat material excluded because it wasnot representative of my work.”

Everyone gets workPoets spoken to for the survey feelcaught on the horns of a dilemma: putup with being marginalised, their ethnicity used – in performance and onthe page – to define their work, or refuseto play the game and risk being left offthe slate at gigs or in anthologies

because they do not want their ethnicityto define their work.

As Asian poet Sundra, observes:“During Black History Month, everyonegets work.”

She articulates the conflict BME poetsfeel: “It is positive because you areearning money as a poet and if you arewriting about your ethnic background,people want to hear about it. But it isalso negative, because I don’t just writeabout my background, I also write aboutworking in an office, but that is notwhat is wanted.”

Minority ethnic poets want a platformfor their work, but they want their workto be judged on its own merit, notbecause it represents “the Black orAsian experience”, whatever thatmeans. In part, says Lawrence, it is asymptom of the way poetry is funded.

Funding bodies’ criteria for awards usually include stipulations about ethnicity and gender. While the systemensures that organisers and editorsacknowledge the Black and Asian voice,it can backfire. “People want to tickboxes,” observes Lawrence. “I am afemale Asian poet and that is twoboxes ticked.” Organisers need to thinkoutside these boxes.

In the meantime, BME poets either playalong or miss out on the rare opportunities to be heard, as MimiKhalvati acknowledges: “It is difficultbecause you don’t want to deny thecentrality of your race and culture, butat the same time you don’t want to betypecast. I’m not going to say no becauseI think I am there in an ethnic capacity.”

The poetry world will know it has brokenthrough the race barrier when BMEpoets feel their work is considered

according to their individual voice andquality and not as an expression of collective racial identity.

No matter how well intentioned, thepresumption that minority ethnic poetssee life entirely through the prism ofethnicity is racial stereotyping, asNewcastle-based poet and journalistKaty Massey points out. “I don’t wakeup every morning and think, ‘What am Igoing to do as a Black woman today?’”she says wryly.

StereotypingThough poets expressed concern thateven on the performance circuit thereare issues of stereotyping, there was astrong feeling that it is open to minorityethnic poets in a way publishing is not.

But the importance of the performancecircuit to BME poets presents problems,as Leeds-based Rommi Smith, a published poet who came up throughthe performance scene, points out: “Ithink more could be focused on the expectation that minority ethnic poetsare performance poets. This is oftenused in a dismissive way. I’ve had thehead of a poetry MA course refer to meas ‘one of those performance poets’, thenproceed to demean the craft as lesser tothat of those who are solely published.”

Mark Mace Smith of Preston believesBME poets must take the long view anduse what is on offer to gain a platformfrom which they can challenge the system. “To get to a position where Ican say what I feel to an audience thatwill listen, I need to go through thisghettoisation so that I can say what Iwant later on,” he comments.

The performance circuit offers access tonetworks, mentors, advice and generalsupport. All were cited as vital if BMEpoets are to break through the barriers

that keep them off the page. This wasespecially important to poets outsideLondon, where resources like Apples & Snakes (www.applesandsnakes.org)are scarce.

“When I lived in East London there werean awful lot of resources for anyonewanting to do more creative writing,”Yasmin Butt says. Since moving toHayes in Middlesex she has found itmore difficult to access networks, inpart because there are few eventswhere she can meet other poets.

It can be lonely outside the metropolitan hub. Writers like Butt, atthe start of their career, ask the samequestion: “How do I find others whocan help me?”

Presuming everyone knows aboutresources like the Writers’ and ArtistsYearbook is misguided. Networks areself-perpetuating: if you are part of oneyou will be pointed towards moreresources; if not, you feel lost, which iswhy online support networks for writers,such as the excellent Commonword(www.commonword.org.uk), need to bemarketed to raise awareness outsideimmediate circles.

A good introduction to networking isadult education. But one issue raised bypoets in the survey was that work commitments mean they can only attendevening courses, which tend to fill upquickly. “All the ones I find are in themiddle of the day,” Rachel Ajoio complains. “I work, but if there werecourses nearby in the evening I wouldgo.” It compounds a feeling of exclusionamong poets.

Guiding handWhile new poets may struggle toaccess networks, poets of all levelswant mentors, as much to guide them

‘Why are White people regarded as the only ones able to make universal observations?’ Leon Charles asks ~ POETS

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through the publishing jungle as anything else.

“Derby is a small city, you don’t meetmany people who are making money fromwriting poetry,” says Alison Solomon,who has attended a number of poetrycourses, but wants help finding outabout the business of getting published,as well as developing her writing.

“I would like a mentor who could helpme with the practicalities of how to dothat: how much to charge, where to getfunding and so on. I would be happytalking to someone by email or phone,just somebody who would be able to

say, ‘That’s crap!’ or ‘Yeah, that isright’” she explains.

A short-term result from this surveywould be to establish networking andmentoring services, which would enableBlack and Asian poets to access mainstream presses and poets of colourwho have successfully managed thetransition to the page. Judging byresponses to the poetry survey, such apoets’ “dating service” would produceimmediate results.

Pragmatic solutions offer no quick fixfor the attitudinal change needed withinpoetry publishing if it is to be morediverse. But they will enable more BMEpoets to get heard and challenge theassumptions that fired the angry editorquoted at the start of this piece.

Mark Mace Smith’s pragmatism anddetermination to break the glass ceilingis typical of the poets questioned forthis survey. To use a cliché, minorityethnic poets are a “very can-do” community, whose lack of access to traditional markets has turned theminto poetry entrepreneurs accessingnew markets for their work.

It is this determination and the recognition that there is a market fortheir work outside Waterstone’s

customers that fires their optimism. It isa resource the presses should tap into.

BME poets want to be published and arewilling to take whatever opportunitiesthey can. This extends to do-it-yourselfpublishing, if all other routes remainclosed. “I am sure that I will self-publishbefore the big boys come looking,”Mace Smith comments.

Voicing the determination of the majority of poets spoken to for thisreport, he adds defiantly: “We will getthere!” When BME poets do, mainstreampresses should be with them if theywant to find a dynamic new market thatcould revitalise British poetry publishingin the 21st Century.•FV

Poetry publishers areadamant they want topublish more minority ethnic poets, so what is getting in the way?Danuta Keaninvestigates.

After years running Kuumba, the successful Bristol poetry venue, BertelMartin felt frustrated at the poor progression of talented minority ethnic

poets from stage to page. So he decidedto do something about it. In April lastyear he set up City Chameleon, an independent poetry press he hopes will

help right a situation that, he says, hasfor too long been wrong.

“What we are trying to do is developwork with writers, rather than just getthem to send manuscripts in to whichwe say yes or no,” he explains. “Thereason we have taken this route is thata lot of Black and Asian writers findgetting support and development hard,and because I want to have a publishing company that has a differentrelationship with its artists and theaudience for their work.”

By “different” he means a relationship in which poets are

mentored and their readershipencouraged by actively developing

an alternative market place for poetry,which is increasingly squeezed outof traditional bookshops.

These are revolutionary actions in asector that by its own admission is

resistant to change, as Paul Keeganconcedes: “Poetry is an inherently conservative genre. It tends to open up relatively slowly and has not diversified as freely as fiction.” Keeganis better placed than most to talk about the poetry establishment: asFaber poetry editor he is at the top ofthe tree.

It is a tree that needs shaking, he freely admits. Because, despite the high profile achieved by minority ethnicpoets on the performance circuit and in fiction, very few are making it into print.

As Keegan implies, it is not racism that blocks minority ethnic poets’progress, it is a culture inclined

POETS ~ Paul Keegan ‘Poetry is an inherently conservative genre. It tends to open up relatively slowly’

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Come the revolution

Martha Kapos ‘We receive hundreds of poems a week and there are just two of us to read them’ ~ PUBLISHERS

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towards the status quo and resistant to change. This was reflected in themajority of responses of poetry pressesto this survey.

Few solutionsAs would be expected of poetry publishers, most want better representation of minority ethnic communities in poetry. But few offeredsolutions as to how to achieve it, andnone regarded their submissions policies as contributing to the problem.

Just the opposite: they choose work on merit and merit alone, said publisherafter publisher. If Black and Asian peopleare poorly represented on their list, it isbecause either they are not submittingtheir work or it is not good enough tomake the cut.

In one rare case was anythingexpressed that could be described asprejudice. “Regarding this race business,you certainly can’t call me racist,” fumedone small publisher, who refuses to benamed. Irritated by the mere mention ofthe subject. Heatedly he adds: “But theugliest word in the English language isthat four letter word beginning with ‘r’.

“It doesn’t help to even talk about it,because as soon as you talk about raceyou talk about difference, and peopleshould be judged on their merits. Itpolarises attitudes to stick labels onpeople. The best way to promote harmony amongst all sorts of people is to encourage role models.”

But the problem for minority ethnic poets,as the survey revealed, is that poetrypublishing has too few BME role models.

Good intentionsIf poetry presses are in favour ofgreater diversity on the page, why aretheir good intentions producing suchpaltry results? And why do there appearto be fewer opportunities for Black andAsian poets to get published now thanthere were 20 years ago?

Publishers questioned for the surveyidentified a number of factors rangingfrom the demise of a viable retail basefor poetry, which has had a corrosiveeffect on independent presses, to theflood of submissions received by poetry editors, which leaves them littletime to scout out new talent or todevelop potential. They also pointed toan overwhelmingly white, male criticalestablishment, which many regarded as resistant to poetry from other cultural perspectives, and thus perpetuating the myth among minorityethnic poets that getting published is “a white thing”.

Two publishers, Peepal Tree Press andArc Publications do publish work byBME poets. A fundamental problem,says Jeremy Poynting of Peepal Tree, isthe lack of interface between theminority ethnic community and thewhite poetry establishment. “The thingthat you notice about good white poetswho approach us is that they all have ac.v. of work that has been published inmagazines, won competitions and soon. That is generally not the case withgood Black and Asian writers,” heexplains. “It is a two way thing.Perhaps they are not aware of the existence of some of the magazines,competitions and smaller presses or

they think they are pretty white and arenot approaching them?”

The gap between minority ethnic poetsand the poetry establishment was highlighted when the Next GenerationPoets list was first drawn up. It featured no poets of colour, and theorganisers were forced to contactpresses working with BME poets andask for submissions.

“I am very sceptical of that whole procedure,” confides Tony Ward, managing director of Lancashire-basedArc Publications. “If you have to scoutaround they’re either not there or someone hasn’t done their homework.There are plenty of very able BMEpoets out there, so you decide whathappened.” The debacle was the inspiration for this project.

Poets’ apprenticeshipPublishers’ suspicions that the twosides are not talking to each other wereconfirmed by BME poets’ responding tothis survey. There was a lack of awareness of what presses want.

Editors repeatedly complained that poetssubmit their work without doing theirhomework first. Faber’s Keegan andCarcanet editorial director MichaelSchmidt are not alone in complainingthat too many poets have read very little by their peers, while Tony Wardsums up general feeling when he complains: “We get a lot of people from minority ethnic communities whosend work in and it is clear that theyhaven’t bothered to do any researchabout what we publish.”

Ward believes frustration on both sides

could be easily avoided if poets didsome research. “We get four or fivemanuscripts a week that don’t fit ourcriteria – they are religious or children’spoems or prose works,” he explains.“One quick click on a mouse wouldexplain what we want and save a lot of frustration.”

The issue of workload is a considerablefactor in the ability of presses to lookfor talent outside their comfort zone,and an unconscious contributing factorto why editors fail to spot talent in theBlack and Asian communities.

The number of editors reading unsolicited submissions at even thebest known poetry presses is in singlefigures, while the number of unsolicitedscripts landing on even the tiniestpresses’ doormats every week is wellinto double figures.

“We receive hundreds of poems a week and there are just two of us toread through all those submissions,”Martha Kapos, assistant editor of theinfluential journal Poetry Londonexplains. She is typical.

The impact of that workload should not be under-estimated. Like their counterparts in the prose world, poetrypublishers are snowed under, and themajority of what comes through thedoor is not very good. But hidden in theslush pile are a handful of poems that fitan editor’s taste.

It is an inefficient system that militatesagainst innovation and investing inpoets with talent whose work has someway to go before it is page ready.Editors are just not hungry enough to ä

PUBLISHERS ~ ‘People from BME communities send in work and haven’t bothered to research what we publish’ – Tony Ward

12 FREE VERSE

break the culture of complacency that isendemic within publishing.

Even if they had the time to hunt downBlack and Asian poets in their own territory, why should they when there is enough work worthy of publicationcoming through the door every month?

Besides, most are not making enoughmoney to justify signing up poets farfrom ready for publication. It is a pointabout which Peter Lewis, who runsHexham-based Flambard Press with hispartner Margaret, feels strongly. Sostrongly, in fact, he has applied forfunding to set up a mentoring schemehe hopes will benefit Black and Asianwriters he has spotted, but has not hadthe resources to develop.

“The most exciting person we have hadapproach us is a young Asian woman,”he says. “We are trying to get somemoney to mentor her. It is somethingwe have done before. When we set upwe said that we were interested inpublishing new and neglected writers,and there must be good writers outthere who haven’t had much luck, sowe can help them.”

While it is encouraging to hear pressessuch as Flambard take mentoring seriously, it is a piecemeal approach.There needs to be a formalised programme of mentoring, adequatelyfunded and administered that benefitsboth presses and poets.

The criticsOf course no amount of mentoring willmake a difference if audiences do nothear about poets’ work, which raisesanother issue highlighted by publishers:

the critics. Very little poetry isreviewed, but publishers crave reviews.In a crowded market with a narrowingretail base a review is critical. But, thecritical establishment is perceived as“hideously white”.

Carcanet’s Michael Schmidt claims it iswrong to believe that a public schoolmafia rules poetry handing out prizes tofriends and reviewing each other. “Yesa lot of people are from Oxbridge, but alot of people in poetry are not,” hesays. Instead, he claims, the blame liesin the tendency of the media to marginalise, a tendency is not limited tothe work of Black and Asian writers.Women writers tend to be reviewed byother women, books by Black writersare sent to Black reviewers, and so on,bunching together writers whose onlycommonality is their gender, race orsexual orientation, he asserts. “It is convenience that causes literary editorsto do that, but is also a kind of laziness,” he says.

This has a dual affect, it sends messages to readers that the books are“minority interest” and, because thesame names tend to be reviewed andthe same faces hauled in front of themicrophone to represent Black or Asianwriters, the impression is created thatthere are few writers from BME backgrounds, which prevents new voices emerging.

Bertel Martin admits some blame forthis marginalisation lies with minorityethnic poets themselves. The emphasison polemic rather than poetic in BMEcommunities has reinforced perceptionsamong some critics that Black poetry in

particular is a political not a culturalmedium. Communities need to givemore support to what is good and notjust political if they are to fight suchprejudice, he contests.

“It is a two-way thing,” he says. “Therehas been within communities a lot ofsupport for people ‘telling it like it is’rather than looking at the quality of theirwork. Sometimes the best examples ofwork by BME poets are not held up tothe light by BME communities.”

He hopes City Chameleon will chip awayat those dual perceptions, building andpromoting poets who should be readbecause their work is of a high standardand because it has something to say toeverybody. “Within the arts it is takenas a given that work by white writers isuniversal,” he adds. “Whereas withBlack artists it has to be stressed thatthis work is universal. We want tochange that.”•FV

Valerie Mason-John,London

VIEWpoint

“I began as a journalist and thatgave me the confidence to writein whatever form I felt like. Iwrite both page poetry and performance poetry. It is hard hitting and held within classical,traditional and contemporaryforms. Fifteen years ago a friendasked me to write a poem for anexhibition. I wrote my first twopoems, Tangled Root and TheColour of My Skin. The Londonlistings magazine City Limitsdid a review of the exhibition and singled out my work. I knewthen I had to write. Since thenThe Colour of My Skin has beenpart of a touring exhibition, which opened at the NationalPortrait Gallery.

I was invited to submit to an anthology, Word Up, published byCenterprise Literature DevelopmentAgency. But having a collection published has been my toughest challenge. I think the fact that I amnot only Black, but an out gay woman has meant people were a bit too scared to take a risk.

What encourages me are my audiences. They continue to ask if Ihave anything published and tell methey love my work. If it wasn’t forthem, I wouldn’t have work out thereon the book shelf. What knocked meback were rejection letters. But I didn’t give up. I continued to performand write plays. Then Get A GripPublishers said they wanted to publish my work, which was great. I had my poems, plays, prose published in one a book, Brown Girl In The Ring. Once published, peopletook me more seriously. But I’m still

waiting for a publisher to publish astandalone collection of my poetry.

I think my performance skills, my persona and my ability to write inother genres are the things that have helped me break through. My one-woman show Brown Girl In TheRing, put me on the map. It is an hour-long performance poetry production. My first novel BorrowedBody has put me on the map as a serious published writer. Interestingly,people say it’s very poetic. Poetry ismy art form.

Performance poets are taken far moreseriously today. Patience Agbabibroke through on the scene, and thereare now prestigious monetary prizesfor performance poets. It was notconsidered worthy of comment when I started, we were seen as protestpoets with a chip on our shoulder. The irony is that Sappho, one of thegreatest poets of all time, was a performance poet.

I would tell poets starting out to seethemselves as poets. Don’t categoriseyourself as a Black or ethnic poet.There’s no need to, the media will dothat for you. If you see yourself simplyas a poet, it will free you up to writeabout whatever you want.”

‘There has been a lot of support for people ‘telling it like it is’, rather than looking at the quality of the work’ ~ PUBLISHERS

FREE VERSE 13

Head to headWhy are so few Black andAsian poets published?Writer BernardineEvaristo and poetry editorNeil Astley of BloodaxeBooks discuss the causes.

Bernardine Evaristo: I think there aretwo major factors why so few newBlack and Asian poets have been published in this country over the last15 years. Firstly it seems to me thatmost poetry editors are suffering from acertain cultural myopia, which is evidenced in the exclusion of poetrywhich draws on Black and Asian cultures; and sadly, this generally goesunchallenged.

Unlike fiction in this country, which hasbeen enriched by British writers withorigins in so many different cultures,many of whom enjoy great critical andcommercial success, the selection criteria for poetry does not have to takeinto account commercial considerationsto the same extent, and so editors’ personal taste, which is justified by thatmost subjective of terms “quality”, ismore of a deciding factor.

All the editors of poetry presses in thiscountry are white, and this is generallyreflected in their lists. Don’t you thinkthis shows a terrible a lack of imagination? I think they need to follow the example of the many fictioneditors who are white and successfullypublish diverse works.

Neil Astley: I don’t think this exclusion is limited to poets drawing on Black and Asian cultures. I know this is our focus, but it’s part of a widerand more fundamental problem withthe ethos of poetry publishing. I thinkthe root cause is that most poetry editors don’t publish poetry for readersbut for poets. Every time I’ve said thismy comments have been greeted withapplause by readers and people whopromote poetry at grassroots level, but with scorn and derision from poetry insiders.

Readers don’t have access to thediverse range of poetry being written,because much of the poetry establishment – including many publishers and reviewers – has becomenarrowly based, male-dominated, whiteAnglocentric and skewed by factionsand vested interests. Too often, editorsthink of themselves and their poetfriends as the only arbiters of taste,only publishing writers they think people ought to read and deprivingreaders of other kinds of poetry, whichmany would find more rewarding.

What you call personal taste I think istoo often a disguise for elitism. I’vealways seen my own remit as an editoras being responsive to writers andreaders, giving readers access to awide range of world poetry: Black andAsian writers form part of that diversespectrum, as do the many exiled writers from Middle East countries who now live in Britain, and are similarly excluded.

Evaristo: I have long thought that thepoetry world is far too nepotistic andinsular for its own good, with a misplaced sense of pride that poetry ashigh art is never going to shift manyunits. And the myth of the poet in thegarret, who will find fame posthumouslybecause his or her poetry is far toosuperior to be appreciated in this dayand age, is also still disconcertinglyalive and well.

Sometimes the poetry world appears tobe a huddle of back-slapping, back-biting,self-aggrandising, self-mythologising,navel-gazing cliques which are far tooself-important and self-protective towant to open out to poetry which drawson, for example, Black and Asian cultures.Surely, if editors broadened their scope

DEBATE ~ Bernardine Evaristo: ‘The poetry world appears to be a huddle of back-slapping, back-biting, self-agrandising, self-mythologising cliques’

14 FREE VERSE

Neil Astley ‘The publication dissemination and reception of poetry is controlled by a tiny group’ ~ DEBATE

15FREE VERSE

and brought into the equation a diversereadership, sales might actually becomemore buoyant.

But sales aside, it is critical approvalthat is the engine behind the poetryworld and this is closely protected:poets review other poets (often friends,associates or from the same publishinghouse) and poets sit on panels andpresent awards to each other; disproportionately so compared to fiction. So what we have is this: poetswrite for each other, dedicate poems to each other, review each other, andread each other. Validation comes totally from within. It is the most tightly-controlled literary genre andother than some tokenistic gestures, itshegemony functions to keep out thosewho are not in the club or clubs. I have never been part of any club so Ispeak with an outsider’s eye. As versenovelist I sit comfortably in the world of fiction because it’s a much moreexpansive world to inhabit in everysense of the word.

Astley: You’re right: the publication,dissemination and reception of poetry is controlled by a tiny group, but whatthey are actually engaging with, protecting and promoting, is just onesmall part of contemporary poetry. Yetthe whole of modern English-languagepoetry is a set of multiple interconnectedtraditions, including the more culturallydiverse oral-based and literary traditionsof African American, Black British,Caribbean and South Asian poetry, withpoetry in translation a parallel source ofnourishment for poets and readers alike.

Poetry editors may be more interestedin the work they’ve grown up with, butwe live in a changing world with evolvingliteratures, and readers are much more

interested in poetry by writers from allkinds of backgrounds. For example,Imtiaz Dharker’s work is concerned withchildhood, home, displacement, exile,religious strife and terror – all themeswhich any reader can identify with, asindeed they have done, becauseBloodaxe’s publication of her books hasled to many invitations for her to givereadings, television interviews andmost recently, the inclusion of her poemson the GCSE syllabus. But she hasn’thad a single national press review.

Last year Bloodaxe published a first collection in English by Choman Hardi, ayoung Kurdish exile living in London,which again has really taken off, withChoman getting numerous readings. Butwhile her book has sold a lot of copies,most of those sales have been made atreadings. Again, she had no nationalpress reviews, and consequently mostbookshops haven’t been willing to stockher book. Next year we will be publishingthe African American poet ElizabethAlexander, her first British publication.She’s very well-known in the States andher books receive national reviewsthere, but what will happen here?

Evaristo: It’s interesting to note thatmany of the poets from Black and Asianbackgrounds who were first publishedin the UK in the 1980s or earlier, gainedtheir reputations on the burgeoning liveliterature circuit of the time; writerswho have also been on the GCSE syllabus, such as John Agard, JamesBerry and Grace Nichols.

Their careers could advance in spite ofthe brick wall of the poetry establishmentbecause an audience developed fortheir work, an audience that loved thework and bought the books. Mostimportantly, these were careers that ä

DEBATE ~ ‘Poetry editors may be more interested in the work they’ve grown up with, but we live in a changing world, with evolving literatures’ Neil Astley

16 FREE VERSE

were not brokered by the mainstreampoetry establishment. Did they getreviewed in the mainstream press? I’dbe very surprised if they did.

But the main difference between thenand now is that they were actually getting published. Where would they beif they were trying to break into print inthe ‘90s or Noughties? As well asAgard and Nichols, I’m talking aboutwriters such as E. A. Markham, DavidDabydeen, Fred D’Aguiar, ValerieBloom, Linton Kwesi Johnson and several others. Yet today, with theexception of Bloodaxe and Peepal TreePress, who publish Kwame Dawes andrecently published Dorothea Smartt andRaman Mundair, new poets of colour,especially British poets, are pretty muchinvisible on the poetry lists.

Both Smartt and Mundair draw on theirrespective British/Caribbean andBritish/Indian backgrounds. Neitherreceived mainstream reviews yet bothregularly give readings and have astrong following, in particular amongBlack and Asian women. Why shouldthat marginalise them? It’s also interesting to note that the poets whowere published in the ‘80s and earlier,without exception, came from theCaribbean, and without wanting to bereductive or judgmental, there was,dare I say it, an “exoticism” in howtheir poetry was perceived, although ofcourse it is never the poet’s intention.

In the ‘80s African-American womennovelists began to be published in theUK and made a huge impact. At thesame time British women novelists ofcolour couldn’t get published becausethey were told that there was ‘no market’for our work. It was then easier to publish writings from abroad than it

was to accept writers who are Blackand British-born or raised and who arewriting from inside our culture. I definitely see a similarity with poetrypublishing today.

Astley: Your parallel with fiction publishing is good, but the difference isthat novelists from diverse culturalbackgrounds get substantial review andfeature coverage. That’s not the casewith poets, with the exception of JackieKay, but then she gets most of her publicity for her fiction.

Where poetry is concerned, writers ofcolour might just as well be invisible,because when they do get their poetrypublished, whether with specialistpresses or mainstream imprints, theyare almost without exception totallyignored in the national press. So there’sa commercial problem for the poetryeditors here: when they do take onbooks by Black and Asian poets, theydon’t get press coverage. Without thatthe bookshops won’t stock the books.

They do get picked up by BBC arts producers for radio features and interviews, but radio producers areresponsive to their audience and theyknow that there is a lot of interest innew poetry from Black and Asian writers, whereas the reviewers aredrawn from the same pool as the poetryeditors. So I think the Arts Councilneeds to talk not just to the poetry editors but also to literary editors, andto encourage them to draw on a widerrange of poetry reviewers, so that poetry by Black and Asian writers iscovered by knowledgeable critics.

Evaristo: I think performance poetryhas become synonymous with poetryfrom Black writers, and that has been

Neil Astley ‘Readings can give helpful exposure... but I rarely see other poetry editors at them’ ~ DEBATE

17FREE VERSE

a Jerwood scheme. Imaginative mentoring programmes can be veryhelpful to new poets from diverse cultural backgrounds, not just from a literary point of view, but through thecontacts they’re able to make.

Readings can give helpful exposure, aswas the case with Choman, but I rarelysee other poetry editors at readings.I’ve bumped into Arc’s Tony Ward andAngela Jarman talent-scouting at festivals, but where are the others? Ibelieve you can’t be responsive towhat’s happening in world poetry frombehind a desk. You can’t rely on whatturns up in the post, you have to get outthere and be proactive.•

* BERNARDINE EVARISTO is author oftwo acclaimed novels in verse, Lara(Angela Royal Publishing) and TheEmperor’s Babe (Penguin), and novel-with-verse Soul Tourists(Penguin). She has written extensively for radio, theatre andnational newspapers and advises avariety of organisations, includingArts Council England. In 2004 shewas elected a fellow of the RoyalSociety of Literature.

* NEIL ASTLEY is editor of BloodaxeBooks, which he founded in 1978.He has edited over 800 poetrybooks, including two bestsellinganthologies, Staying Alive (2002)and Being Alive (2004), and has published two novels, The End of My Tether (2002), which was shortlisted for the Whitbread FirstNovel Award, and The Sheep WhoChanged the World (2005).

to the detriment of poetry that has thecomplexity, nuance and texture requiredto withstand scrutiny on the page. Butover the past 20 years there has been asteady build up of performance poetswho are Black and are among the mostcelebrated and visible poets in thiscountry. Consequently they become rolemodels for younger poets, many of whomaspire to become performance poets.

I do accept that these poets may notchoose to be role models, and whyshould they? But as public figures thetruth is that this is what they become. I am not objecting to performance poetry per se, which I see as a literature/performance genre with itsown specialised craft and productionvalues, but I do object to the fact that ithas taken precedence over poetry not written for performance. As a resulthardly any writers of colour are makingthe journey onto the page.

Astley: I agree, that’s another problemthat needs to be aired. On the positiveside, the flourishing of performancepoetry has encouraged poets who mightsee themselves as writing more for thepage to become better readers of theirown work, and that has improved thestandard of poetry readings and meantaudiences have become more excitedabout all kinds of poetry.

And there are poets with their feet inboth camps. For example, my introductionto Choman Hardi’s work was hearingher read at an Apples & Snakes event inLondon, and I went up to her afterwardsand suggested she send me her work.She’d benefited from being mentoredby Moniza Alvi, and over the next yearor so she was able to build up a publishable collection with the help offurther mentoring by George Szirtes on

FV

MENTORS ~ Take your time and have at least one social meeting first in which you can introduce the reasons you are looking for a mentor

18 FREE VERSE

Get with the programmeMentoring was top oftheir wish list for mostBlack and Asian poets surveyed. Kadija George Sesay explainshow it works.

Mentoring is one of the buzzwords ofthe new century and poetry is notimmune. But what is mentoring?Mentoring programmes give new poetsthe benefits of hindsight offered by better established poets. Whether it isadvice about writing, getting publishedor making money, mentored poets benefit from their mentor having beenthere before.

In 2004 Peepal Tree Press started theInscribe programme to work with mid-career writers, although they werenot necessarily published. We soonfound that what poets most wanted fromtheir mentors was not just feedback ontheir work, but other kinds of support.

Poets want mentors:

– to encourage and motivate themwith a specific piece of work

– to help build their confidence aswriters and performers

– to assist in the development of aspecific area/technique of writing

– to help make contacts within thepoetry world

– to give career advice.

There are now many schemes for poetsto access mentors, but there are veryfew published poets of African andAsian descent in the UK and thereforethey are spread thin as mentors. Onesolution the Inscribe programme foundto this problem was to have virtualmentors, who used the internet to overcome geographical barriers.

So at what stage in your career do you need a mentor? What should youlook for in a mentor? And what shouldyou expect?

Quite early in your writing career amentor of the same gender or ethnicitymay seem essential. Early work may bevery culturally specific and cathartic, sohaving someone who understands yourworld view may be helpful. If you havemoved on from this stage, the mentorsought is likely to be one who understands your writing but is able tooffer constructive criticism to which you can respond positively.

This raises an important point in thementor and mentored relationship: it isno good having a mentor if you are notprepared to take on board constructivecriticism. After all, one reason to seek amentor is that you want to improve as apoet and that means that you are willingto receive criticism from someonewhose work you respect and admire.

A formal mentoring scheme is helpfulfor several reasons:

– it will probably have funding to payyour mentor

– it will probably have a tried and tested formula and programme thatthe mentor has already agreed to

– its organisers will act as a thirdparty in any disagreements

– it should have formalised contractsbetween mentor, mentee and theorganiser that all agree to uphold.

If you are not able to take advantage ofa mentoring scheme, it is okay tosearch for a mentor on your own. Thebest of such informal mentoringarrangements form organically, forexample through meeting someonethrough your work, a reading or a personal introduction.

Once you have decided what you want, only then can you decide how towork with your mentor. Find out abouttheir motivations and interests andwhether they have ever taught or beena mentor before.

Take time and have at least one socialmeeting in which you can explain thereasons you are looking for a mentor. Berespectful of your prospective mentor’stime, since they are usually giving it withlittle or no financial recompense in mind.

It is important to formalise arrangements.Things to discuss include everythingfrom the number and length of face-to-face sessions to agreeing specific timesand dates when you can call your mentor and for how long. It is alsoworth clarifying whether he or she iswilling to introduce you to his or heragent. A solid mentoring relationshipcan become a lasting friendship, so it isworth the investment up front.

In the meantime, discovering a fruitfulrelationship and sourcing a writing partner is a good alternative. Friendsand colleagues who have been throughthe process of establishing themselvesas writers can be helpful. For many spoken word artists, even those with

KAREN McCARTHY

WAR’S IMPERIAL MUSEUM

Inside the old asylum, underground,

Auschwitz is shrunk to an icy cake,

pristine and architectural.

I have seen this blueprint before:

the who, how, what, where of

stuffing everybody in.

This is what scares me.

Not the emaciated corpses tipped

into mass graves like landfill.

Nor the reality of shoes.

Or the fact that Roman Halter,

who buried hope with his father,

still goes to synagogue but cannot pray.

Mercy is a muzzled dog as I meander

from Genocide – 1st Floor to Genocide –

Lower Ground, before arriving at

Crimes Against Humanity: Level 4.

Pol Pot, Kurdistan, Rwanda: touch screen

technology enables the death counts

to scroll like football scores.

Now it is the 21st Century, I wonder

if soon we will be required to dismiss

that which has happened the century before.

Who remembers Armenia now?

The name has changed but it is still Bedlam.

Departure is harder than I think,

it takes time to exit this predatory basement.

Out past jaunty fighter planes that dangle

in the atrium. Out past the thrusting

guns, two of them, long as a street.

Out into the air, grateful for frost

and buses, which glow like lamps,

luminous in the dark afternoon.

‘...The name has changed but it is still Bedlam’ ~ POEM

19FREE VERSE

one collection to their name, a mentorremains a valuable asset.

But the more progress you make themore difficult finding a mentorbecomes, as there are fewer suitablecandidates available. No wonder thosethat fit the bill are in demand!

One final point that sometimes concernsburgeoning writers – mentors are notout there to steal your work. Anyresemblance in their work to yours issimply that, a resemblance. Never forget you selected a mentor whosework you admire, and so it is to beexpected that there will be similaritiesin style and substance.•

* KADIJA GEORGE SESAY is project co-ordinator for Inscribe,founder and publisher for SABLE,LitMag (www.sablelitmag.org) and editor of Write Black, WriteBritish: From Post Colonial to Black British Literature (HansibPublications).

MENTORING TIPS FOR POETS

Writers on the Inscribe programme offer their tips tomake a mentoring relationshipwork:

• Trust your mentor.

• Provide your mentor withyour biography.

• Decide on the scopa andmakings of the relationshipbefore you start.

• Your mentor should be ableto draw out from you whyyou are writing.

• Your mentor needs to learnabout your aims if there isto be progress.

• The mentor has to be ‘partdiviner’, as you may notalways be sure what youreally need.

FV

MONEY ~ spoken word events are underestimated as a marketplace for poetry publications

20 FREE VERSE

PHOT

O: W

WW

.THI

RD-A

VEN

UE.C

O.UK

Just rewards?How do poets make endsmeet? Katy Masseyfinds out.

Popular imagination may have poetsstarving in garrets while they pursuetheir art. But in reality poets subsidisetheir creativity by keeping up the dayjob, according to Mark Le Fanu, generalsecretary of the Society of Authors.“Poets make a hand-to-mouth existencefrom reviewing, readings, talks, residencies and journalism,” he says.

The duty of public funding bodies toensure representation of minoritygroups has benefited minority ethnicpoets, who have found work leadingworkshops, in residencies, at schoolsand in community projects. But, arguespoet John Siddique, the benefit ofthese day jobs can backfire, and poetsfind themselves with no time to workon getting published. “People get sidelined into spoken word activitiesrather than engaging with literature in a wider way,” says Siddique, who hasworked full-time as a poet for the past10 years.

Career choicesThere is a good reason why poetschoose to pursue spoken word careers.Performance promoters are successfulat attracting audiences, which in turnattracts sponsorship, which means thechance to get paid.

Poetry producer Renaissance One hasrecently toured Britain with a series oflimings, which mix readings with foodand drink in a casual, non-literaryatmosphere. Similarly, The WatchmenAgency, a marketing and events agency specialising in urban culture, has beeninvolved in spoken word events andtours sponsored by Guinness Extra Stout.

What characterises the approach oftheir events is that they link poetry tothe entertainment industry rather thanthe literary world. Similarly Poetry In

‘...Who says today’s children don’t eat the old food?’ ~ POEM

21FREE VERSE

Motion, a monthly poetry and musicevent held in London, turns into a clubafter the mike stands are put away. The club atmosphere helps attract acrowd of hundreds of people from outside the poetry mainstream.

Bertel Martin, a Bristol-based performance organiser and poetry publisher focused on BME communities,says the importance of spoken wordevents as a marketplace for poetry publications is underestimated andunderexploited. He wants to work with writers as performers and published poets.

“Publishing is important, as it illustratesthe depth and perspective that writersare bringing to their work,” says Martin.“A lot of work can’t be performed, ithas to be communicated on the page. Itis an entirely different way of engagingwith an audience.”

He believes also that BME poets aremissing out on the opportunities available from other media. “I try to get them to see themselves as writers,not simply poets, novelists or whatever.There are opportunities in theatre, film and radio, which they could takeadvantage of.”

Commerce also meets poetry at Poetry in the City, a fund-raising vehicle for the Poetry Society, whichsupports the society’s educational work.Founded by City lawyers Bates, Wells & Braithewaite, Poetry in the City hasheld events as diverse as a T S Eliotcelebration, a performance by Africanpoets at the headquarters of AmnestyInternational and an evening of Punjabi poetry, which, according to itsdirector Graham Henderson, was well-supported by members of thePunjabi community.

Limited opportunitiesDespite poets carrying out paid workranging from readings to workshops andschool visits to residencies, opportunitiesto be published remain limited.

Even if a poet is successful and finds apublisher, there is no guarantee thatthey will earn any money from their collection. Advances, if paid, are generally no more than a few hundredpounds and it can take years for salesto pay back that advance. Even established minority ethnic poets havestruggled to receive royalties. Twopoets, who declined to be named, hadcollections published, but didn’t receivea penny from their erstwhile publishers.“I didn’t get anything upfront, butshould have got 10% of the royalties. In the end, I got nothing as they neverpaid up,” bemoans one.

Straight questions poets wantanswered by poetry editors include:how do they decide who goes into print and who receives a rejection slip?What should poets expect to earn fromtheir published work? And how manycopies need to be sold before a book is considered a success? Publishers are willing to provide few straightanswers. In fact some, who gave generously of their opinions elsewhere in this report, become evasive when asked about money.

Once accepted for publication, poetsare usually entitled to buy a number of copies of their work from their publisher at a discount. They can thensell these copies at events for a profit.The number of books poets expect tosell at events varies from none on a bad night to a dozen on a good one.Book sales at events are increasinglyimportant for poets and presses, ä

DALJIT NAGRA

ARRANGED MARRIAGE

My mum cramming a globe of ladoo

against the will of my gob

then flushing it through thanks to the slick

of syrup. There in the cramped

moist temple, on cue, she oozed from

her crocodile purse a wad

of firmed notes - circling their halos

for ages over my head

for the ceremony with video crews.

Dropped her load. Dropped

again for the cross-legged bride. Emptied,

she cleared a bow for her god.

Granny hobbled out a ladoo

and crashed it home with prune

fingers, the mash of their beads

on my gritted teeth, a feast

for flies, as the preacher chorused

the whole hush-temple rose.

Zombying behind both me and the bride,

each fixed pose was frozen in line,

moth-ball scented, a twenty-twenty

video vision of ponies, monkeys

floated in turns by wedlocked pairs.

Soft the parting that bullioned the air.

Numb, I sat necklaced in flowers,

a costumed prat from another world,

as the cash bedded between my lap

I deadened my head inside the turban

from holy muzak of moaning harmonium

(and buk-buk-buk that bored me rigid),

still feeling sick when my deaf grandad

started to let rip in fake posh-Indian:

Who says today’s children don’t eat the old food?

Did you see how my boy has stuffed his ladoos?

Ladoo – saffron-coloured sweetmeats about the size of a golf ball

MONEY ~ Ask for too much and you price yourself out of the market, ask for too little and you show you don’t value your work

22 FREE VERSE

because most are denied access to traditional bookshops.

Crista Ermiya, is coordinator ofIndependent Northern Presses and runsher own small press, Dogeater. It ispossible for presses to make money,she believes, although profits are minimaland most exist on a shoestring and needpublic subsidy. “Dogeater supportsitself because the editing and artworkare done free and I have found a verycheap printing house,” Ermiya explains.

“I have to sell about 70 copies to coverthe costs of a title, and these sell mainlythrough spoken word events,” she adds.Performance is everything, no matterhow much better a poet may be on thepage. Sales are heavily dependent onhow good the poet is at communicatingtheir work and a good performanceequals good sales.

Do it yourselfMany poets short-circuit poetry housesby self-publishing. Former art director

Ray Hollingsworth has built up a cultreputation by self-publishing his collections (which use high-quality formats and graphics), which he managed to get into Waterstone’s.However, the start-up and developmentcosts associated with his venture wouldhave been considerable.

To be a success, self-publishingdemands huge commitment in time,energy and money. For DIY publishers,the art of self-promotion is even moreimportant than it is for poets publishedthrough established presses. Once yourbook has arrived from the printers youalone are responsible for getting it outthere. That means hustling bookshops,agencies and press. If sales are througha website, it means time and moneyspent fulfilling online orders.

It is a selling job and is easier withsome bookshops than with others.Ottakar’s gives branch managers abudget to use at their discretion, andlocal branches are open to persuasionfrom local authors. But how long thatwill last if Waterstone’s, W H Smith orone of the other bidders for the chain issuccessful is a moot point.

Though Waterstone’s managers havesome discretionary budget, most booksare chosen at head office. The chainhas buyers specifically tasked withdealing with self-published and independent presses. Head buyer ScottPack has championed small presses andself-published books. Pack is leavingthe chain in the summer, so, if you havethe chutzpah, approach him quickly(email: scott.pack@waterstones.co.uk).

The increasingly rare, local independentbookshop should be at the top of self-publishers’ lists, as they and theyalone decide on what they stock. Again,

direct approaches to local outlets canwork. Otherwise, talk about representation to a sales agencies suchas Compass (020 8994 6477) orTurnaround (www.turnaround-uk.com), which will pitch your book atchains and wholesalers supplying independent bookshops. Be warned theboom in self-publishing means thesales agencies are getting more pickyabout what they will represent, so youneed to have a convincing argumentabout why your collection will sell.

Must try harderEverybody interviewed for this pieceagreed on one thing: the market forpoetry is limited, but it could be biggerif presses tried harder to convert theaudiences at poetry events into bookbuyers. This audience enthusiasticallyengages in poetry workshops and ventures out on wintry evenings to listen to readings.

It is not a lazy audience, nor an ignorant one. It is difficult not to conclude that this potential readershiphas been underestimated, and that thepoetry books that might meet its needfor creativity, enlightenment, or evenentertainment are simply lacking.•

* KATY MASSEY is a published poet,journalist and teacher based inNewcastle upon Tyne. As well asperforming and writing poetry, shewrites a monthly money column forCosmopolitan and is a part-time lecturer in media, film and creativewriting. She may be contacted onkatymassey@aol.com.

SELLING YOURSELF AS A POET – HOW TO THINK LIKE A PROFESSIONAL POET

Gather testimonials from successful events: these are like references when you approach organisations for work or with ideas.

Put together a well-presented ‘press pack’: include a chap book orother sample of your work, testimonials, a CV, visuals of successfulprojects, anything which shows people what you’re capable of.

Use technology: online blogs, simple websites, and online networking all help to build an audience.

Look at mutually beneficial relationships: Consider how your workcan support the work of organisations such as schools, hospitals, colleges, community centres, galleries and museums – poetry canbring a static exhibition (pictures, photographs, books etc) to life.

Be bold: Approach organisations and publishers with well-thoughtout and well-presented ideas – spelling mistakes, or missing contact details won’t go down well.

Persevere: Consistently submit work to journals and magazines – set a target (eg one of two pieces a month) and stick to it.

Work on your performance technique: look for workshops and courses aimed at actors/performers.

Negotiate: Ask for too much money and you’ll price yourself out ofthe market. Too little, and you are showing you don’t value your work enough.

Network: Like most businesses, people prefer to deal with peoplethat they know. Networking is important – get out there and mingle!

FV

‘Writers can improve by reading widely and not just within their own space,’ Michael Carcanet ~ PUBLISHING

Alison Solomon,Birmingham

VIEWpoint

“I would say that my work isobservational, written for thepage and performance. I was acloset writer. Then, when I livedin Derby, I was put in touch withthe local literature development officer and from that I becameinvolved with other writers andpainters. Now one of my pieceshas been included in the Bull Ringredevelopment in Birminghamafter I won a competition.

It is very difficult for Black and Asianpoets to be taken seriously, treatedon a par with white poets.Opportunities are difficult to comeacross. I have friends who have beentrying for years but are only nowbreaking through. The problem isbreaking out into the wider community.A lot of it is about who you know.

One of the issues is time – as well asmoney. If you are working full time,like I am – I have a day job runningworkshops with children involvingarts and crafts and also working incasting for the theatre – you don’thave time to get to events and classes. I have done one or two poetry courses, and they were reallygood, but I got to the point where Iwasn’t going to do any more becausethey were just about writing ratherthan anything else. They were greatfor learning about different styles, but there was nothing on them aboutgetting published.

I have tried to find a mentor and havewritten to places like Apples &Snakes, for information, but nothinghas come of it. It would be great tohave somebody from the same

background, but what I want most issomeone who knows the process ofgetting published. Someone I can ask:what do I do with my poetry once it ispublished? Should I be looking to getan agent? Is this a performance pieceor can it work on the page?

As well as networking, I would likehelp with funding as I don’t knowmany people who make a living out ofpoetry. I asked the Arts Council how Ishould go about funding and if I couldgo in and see them, but was told notto bother until I had a proper structurefor what I want to do. There wasnothing about how to move on fromthere. I haven’t looked at alternativefunding bodies because I don’t knowhow. I don’t think any of this isbecause I am Black, it is just knowingwho to talk to and what to do.”

Read then writeFaber poetry editor PaulKeegan and Carcanetpublisher MichaelSchmidt on getting published.

One thing both Paul Keegan andMichael Schmidt agree on is that thebest thing a budding poet can do isread, read and read some more. “Thedanger is that you tend to think, especially if you come from a minorityethnic background where there is acomplex story of integration and adaptation, that that experience is themost important thing about you,”Keegan explains. “That is only half thestory. How you relate to the widerexperience is almost equally important,and the more you read then the better

you become at what you are trying tocommunicate.”

Schmidt agrees. “Writers can improveby reading widely and not just withintheir own space,” he says. Not readingthe work of other poets is a basic failing of many aspiring poets, he adds:“One of the things that you discoverfrom interviewing people on poetrycourses is that they all want to writepoetry, but they have read very little.”

Not reading shows in a poets’ work,because it lacks basic componentsneeded to communicate clearly withreaders, says Keegan. “The problemwith a lot of unsolicited poems sent tous is that they are clearly written bypeople who have written more thanthey have read. They need to get awayfrom the sense that they can

communicate without the machinery for doing so.”

Poets, say both, need to acquire anarmoury of weapons that will help themachieve their goal of communicatingwith readers, otherwise they risk beingmisinterpreted, obscure or even solipsistic. They also need to be awarethat traditional poetic structures can beliberating, decluttering their work ofdistracting ideas and images.

“You need to know that certain kinds of formal constraint are not inhibiting,”explains Keegan. “For instance, if youare writing a sonnet and the 14 linesyou use excludes more than it includesof what you want to say, that is not abad thing. If you make things difficultfor yourself that is probably better,”Keegan also advises poets to build a

publication c.v. “Rather than sending inunpublished poems, it is better to usethe structures that are out there – suchas chap books, competitions and poetrymagazines – to publish work and thenapproach us,” he explains.

Schmidt says two questions come tomind when he reads unsolicited submissions. They are questions hebelieves poets should ask themselvesbefore submitting work. The questionsare: what is the poem trying to do?And: was it worth doing?

If he feels satisfied with the answers tothose two questions, he then asks isthe poem interesting? If the answer tothat is yes, only then does he ask thefinal question, the one all poets want tohear answered in the affirmative:“Should I publish it or not?” •

23FREE VERSE

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FUNDING ~ To pursue funding available to groups, it pays to think laterally

24 FREE VERSE

The prize guysArts funding was animportant issue for surveyed poets. KatyMassey reveals how and where to get it.

Poetry is rarely self-supporting andfunding from public bodies, literaryprizes and scholarships is invaluable.Getting your potential as a poet recognised through an award buildsconfidence and, more importantly, givesyou time to develop your work.

The Arts Councils in England andScotland, and ACW in Wales are themain sources of grants for starting newprojects and winning time to completeexisting projects. The application procedure is much less complicatedthan it used to be. It asks you to providea breakdown of how the money will bespent, who will read your work andhow it will benefit the wider community.All regional Arts Councils offer guidancefor applications.

decibel was a £5m Arts Council initiative “to challenge the perceptionof arts in contemporary British society”.With its emphasis on funding minorityartists, Black and Asian poets canreceive support from regional decibelofficers (look at your regional ArtsCouncil website for more information).In addition, in England Grants for theArts holds public meetings offeringadvice from arts officers. Again information about when these eventsare to be held may be found on regionalArts Council websites.

Beyond government subsidy, there areprivately sponsored and regionally funded prizes and grants. New WritingNorth in the north of England holds theNorthern Writer’s Awards, which aredesigned to support promising andestablished writers. The Society ofAuthors’ website carries details ofother sources, including The AuthorsFoundation, The K Blundell Trust andthe Eric Gregory Ward, which are opento poets and support work in progress.

The Creative Skills Consortium offersbursaries for artists to undertake trainingto support their work (details on theLiterature Training website). In the northeast of England the Northern CulturalSkills Partnership runs a similar scheme.

The Scottish Arts Council is the mainbody for public funding of the arts inScotland. Its funding comes primarilyfrom the Scottish Executive, to which it is accountable. It runs two mainschemes: one for individuals and onefor organisations. Information can befound on its website.

The Arts Council of Wales (ACW),through Academi, offers two main funding schemes, for individuals andorganisations, and its website hasinformation on what is available.

To pursue funding available for groupsit pays to think laterally. Newcastle-based poet Sheree Mack obtained ACEfunding to start a writing group forminority ethnic writers in the region. As a result, she has published a collection, A Taste of Liquorice.

Down in Bristol Bertel Martin obtaineda grant from his regional arts council tosupport a residency at the city’s BritishEmpire and Commonwealth Museum,and to pursue his community-basedpublishing project City Chameleon.

Other funding opportunities include bursaries from the British Council to payfor writers for travel overseas to visitfestivals, overseas academic institutionsand to promote books. The WingateScholarship supports post-graduatestudies and individual creative projects.

An invaluable source is The Writers andArtists Yearbook (Macmillan). It can befound in all good bookshops and localpublic libraries. •

FOR WHAT IT’S WORTH: The Society of Authorsguide to fees

Lectures, readings and workshops: £250 for a full day,and £150 for a single session (or half a day) plus expenses.

School visits: should be asabove but tend to be less: £150for a whole day or £100 for a half day.

Residencies: authors shouldwork out a fee based on anannual salary of £22,000.

The Arvon Foundation: £1,000to tutors from Monday afternoonthrough to Saturday.

Commercial companies andtrade associations: depends onthe status of the author. Very fewprofessional speakers chargeless than £1,000.

Talks at school conferencesand training days: £200 perlecture, or £300 to £500 for awhole day.

Literary festivals: £100 is thenorm plus expenses.

With thanks to Elizabeth Haylettand the Society of Authors

FV

USEFUL WEBSITES

For more information about FREE VERSE, visit www.freeverse.org.uk. Thiswebsite is the first place to visit if you are a poet and serious about gettingpublished. It includes an expanded version of this report, details of poetryorganisations and poetry presses across the UK, further guidance on gettingpublished, and discussion boards to meet other poets and mentors.

Arts Council England www.artscouncil.org.ukFunding guidelines, downloadable application forms, etc.

Scottish Arts Council www.scottisharts.org.uk

Arts Council of Wales www.artswales.org.uk

Academi www.academi.orgThe Welsh national literature promotion agency.

Society of Authors www.societyofauthors.netInformation about grants and awards, it also operates like an authors’trade union.

National Association of Writers in Education www.nawe.co.uk

NAWE Directory of Writers In Education www.artscape.org.uk

The British Council www.britishcouncil.orgThe British Council enables individual writers and groups of writers to travelabroad on academic visits, to attend festivals or to promote books. It also hasa fantastic range of links to literary websites.

Literature Training www.literaturetraining.comAn excellent online resource of paid opportunities in the creative industries,as well as mentoring schemes, calls for submissions, competitions etc.

TrAce’s trace.ntu.ac.uk/traced/blackwr.htmLive arts site, which has a directory of websites of interest to Black authors.

Spread the Word www.spreadtheword.org.ukA range of practical advice on getting published as well as information and details of courses, workshops and events for poets and writers of allgenres. Spread the Word provides support to develop writers at all stages of their careers.

Apples and Snakes www.applesandsnakes.orgEngland’s leading performance poetry organisation.

Commonword www.commonword.org .ukA creative writer/publishing organisation in the North West of England.

ROGER ROBINSON

KNOWLEDGE AND PRAYERS

There was the time when my mother beat us

with a curtain cord slicing wails in our skin

and my father ran out the house crying.

I heard that when he was young his father

made him boil his belt before being beaten

with the belt buckle-side. Once his father

beat him on his back till his spine was bruised

and he couldn’t walk for thirteen days.

Another time he was put in a corner

to kneel with his hands outstretched in the air.

His father left him there for an hour

and then he placed an encyclopaedia

in his outstretched hands, and left him there

for another hour. Then he added

a bible, and left him there, whilst his brothers

were sent to bed. They left him there

overnight.

‘...and my father ran out the house crying’ ~ POEM

25FREE VERSE

VIEWPOINT ~ ‘Don't get too precious about what you write – listen to criticism’

26 FREE VERSE

The roadDanuta Kean summarisesthe main recommendationsof Free Verse.

Free Verse has highlighted the issuesfacing Black and Asian poets who want to be published, and the issuesfacing poetry presses who wish to publish them.

Effort is needed on both sides to breakdown the barriers between them. Thetwo boxes below summarise the recommendations in this report forminority ethnic poets who want tobreak out and for the poetry establishment – presses, journals, critics and arts bodes – to be both moreinclusive and diverse. If everyone workstogether, the rewards are not just thediscovery of new poetic voices, but ofnew markets that will benefit the wholepoetry world. •

Daljit Nagra, London

VIEWpoint

“Before I started writing my ownpoetry, I’d already been throughmost of the key ‘dead poets’. I wanted to get some pieces published after a one-hour session for new poets with RuthPadel at the Poetry School. Thesession was really helpful. Itgave me confidence to write andhelped me find out about how toget published.

I’m not sure if I initially struggled with publication of individual poemsbecause I was writing about Indiansin a very messed up way (confusingsyntactical inversions, overly looserhythms, Punjabi lexis and so on) orbecause these pieces were not verygood. I suspect the latter as the mainissue and the former as a small butsignificant issue.

I addressed my technical deficienciesby reading more poetry, critics andattending workshops. I attended myfirst Arvon Foundation course aboutfour years ago and this helped me enormously with developing my style. I should have done one of thesecourses much earlier because theintense feedback from two goodtutors – Mimi Khalvati and KwamiDawes – made me more efficient atthe editing stage.

My ambitions involve finding variedand interesting ways to write aboutthe mixing of castes, cultures andgenders in the UK. Recognition byreceiving accolades may or may notbe a useful sign that I am heading inthe right direction, but it would begreat for my confidence.

My advice to new poets would be:read all sorts of poetry; read criticsand critical ideas about poetry; go toseminars, workshops, residencies;and don’t get too precious about whatyou write – listen to criticism andmake changes.”

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POETS – WHAT CAN YOU DO NOW?PRACTICAL ADVICE TO DEVELOP LINKS WITH PUBLISHERS

• Research: read magazines, and learn about their submissions policiesand what they’re looking for. Read as much contemporary poetry as possible and ask yourself: what is being written at the moment? Arethere prevailing themes, styles and forms that are in fashion?

• Network: get out there, attend readings and festivals, try to meet poets, editors and anyone working in poetry publishing.

• Submit your work to magazines: be persistent, follow up submissions and ask, politely, for feedback. Take on board advice anddon’t be discouraged, learn from it and keep trying.

• Learn: attend poetry workshops, courses and writing groups. Sharingyour work is a good test of how well it works and of the progress you are making. Seek constructive criticism and use it.

• Develop: if you can find a mentor, or an informal writing buddy or online tutor to give you feedback, do so or join an established scheme.

• Advice: seek advice from established poets. Most are approachable,especially at events, and as long as you don’t bother them too much, they are keen to help.

• Print a chap-book or pamphlet and use it to submit work to pressesand to sell at events. It will convince people there is an audience for your work. Set up a website and advertise your work.

‘Effort is needed on both sides to break down the barriers between poets and passes’ ~ RECOMMENDATION

27FREE VERSE

ahead...

PUBLISHERS – WHAT CAN YOU DO NOW?PRACTICAL ADVICE TO DEVELOP LINKS WITH POETS

• Network: using the internet a network needs to be set up for all parties interested in expanding the representation of Black and Asianpoets on the page. This can be used to widen the debate to include thedisparate presses and organisations outside the metropolitan hub.

• Co-ordination: regional “lighthouses” – visible points of contact – need to be developed through which Black and Asian poets can accessthe poetry world and where the initiatives taking place in isolated presses can be shared with others and marketed.

• Dialogue: the poetry establishment and minority ethnic poets and organisations need to establish a dialogue through which they canexchange ideas about improving access for BME poets and breakingdown the barriers, whether real or perceived, that stop them submittingtheir work. This would look at everything from the representation of Black and Asian people within the poetry workforce and the critical establishment to the criteria used to judge poetry.

• Exchange: Black and Asian-identified organisations’ successful development of the BME market for poetry – whether through performance or print – holds lessons for the poetry establishment about opening up markets and developing commercial potential. The presses need to listen.

• Development: funding is needed to establish development programmesfor Black and Asian poets whose work is not yet page ready. This couldbe used on projects such as formalised mentoring programmes, development of poets by presses and a web-based “dating service” that would match poets to suitable tutors, mentors and presses.

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creating opportunities for writers