More poetry

I've been greatly taken up recently with the task of compiling an anthology of poems by members of the Brighton Stanza Group, affiliated to the Poetry Society.  I attend their monthly workshops, which have been an invaluable source of encouragement for my fledgling efforts in the poetry field.  Jo Grigg, our group leader, asked me a while back if I'd be prepared to put an anthology together, and it seemed a good idea at the time.  

Like all projects, it's had its ups and downs: the initial problem was financial - since the market is awash with poetry books that nobody is buying, we were going to have to self-fund to a degree.  That problem was overcome by Andie Davidson, a member of the group, suggesting we use her Bramley Press and cover out-of-pocket expenses only.  So contributors make a fairly nominal contribution per poem published, and Andie keeps any profits from sales.  

Then the submissions started to come in, and I began to worry about the quality of the poems themselves.  We have some excellent poets in the group, a number of whom have won prizes and/or had collections published.  But the anthology needed to be inclusive, as a community effort, so we couldn't just put in the highfalutin literary stuff.  I did a preliminary cull, and then consulted two other members who had volunteered to go on the editorial committee, and finally we came up with a list of what should go in and what not.

I'm now at the stage of gathering in biographical details from contributors, and the project is taking shape as I put together a text that, over the next few weeks, can be sent over to Andie for the final steps in the process.  What is exciting - principally as a result of the inclusive approach that Jo insisted on from the start - is the wide diversity of people and poems.  We have a number of contributions that fall into the category of performance poetry - more for the mike than the page - but which we felt read well enough on the page as well.  But we also have variety of forms - from sestinas through free verse to "senryu", a form of haiku.  

From the biographical notes that are coming in, we have equal diversity among the poets - so far we have age differences from 72 to 17, and experience ranging from prizewinners and published poets to newbies in the field.

Needless to say, there's been more work in it than I bargained for at the start, and it's not over yet.  But it's a pleasure to be involved in a joint creative effort in our little corner of Sussex.

Antony Mair