Tag: Roncadora Press

Getting and spending

What a week. Ooya-hun — what a week! I warn you — this blog entry is much too long.

No post last weekend because it was the fifth birthday party. Family were staying, including my sister sleeping in the study where I write this blog on a Sunday morning. It was the most complicated event I’ve ever attempted to organise. Mid-preparations, Gina Wilson’s pamphlet was in its final stages — I took a mock-up to the party itself to give to her for final checking.

What a week. Ooya-hun — what a week! I warn you — this blog entry is much too long.

No post last weekend because it was the fifth birthday party. Family were staying, including my sister sleeping in the study where I write this blog on a Sunday morning. It was the most complicated event I’ve ever attempted to organise. Mid-preparations, Gina Wilson’s pamphlet was in its final stages — I took a mock-up to the party itself to give to her for final checking.

Gillian (artist daughter) made an amazing cake. More than 60 people, about 20 of these being HappenStance poets, came along. Robin Vaughan-Wiliams did a Risk Assessment. Poems were read from past pamphlets, recent pamphlets, pamphlets out of print, pamphlets in process and pamphlets which haven’t even got as far as a contents list. Jamie Rose of Reeds (son-in-law made music and sang one of the poems, a ballad).  I nearly cried. I was able to say my bit about poetry, whatever it may be, being less about the art of the individual than the mystery of language (to which all poets subscribe). I think I said it less pretentiously than that.

At the party, I didn’t mention being shortlisted for the Michael Marks Award for the second year. However, on Monday there was a mysterious email from PBS about jpgs.

On the Tuesday, there was an email to check whether I was coming and if so, bringing how many guests. I replied to say I couldn’t come — working flat out in college — but that two of ‘my’ poets would be there.

On the Wednesday (day of the award ceremony) there was another email, asking me to call as soon as possible, and even including a mobile number. And a similar message left on the message machine (not on my mobile though). I didn’t get home on that Wednesday until 7.45 (the college work really is driving me demented just now and it’s end of term next Friday) and when I picked up the message I thought, hm, that’s interesting (see post of 5th May).

About ten minutes later I got a text message which read: Congratulations! Hope your ears are burning!

Even more interesting. I wasn’t sure who the text was from (changed my phone recently and not all my contacts, for reasons not understood, transferred from old phone to new one). So I texted back: Congratulations on what?

And it was Davina (D A Prince), who was at the Michael Marks Event in the British Library, and with her Clare Best, who also texted me. And we had WON. So there was much jumping up and down in the HappenStance household, phone calls hither and thither. Descriptions from Davina and Clare on the phone. Tessa Ransford had picked up the cheque on my behalf and made a nice speech.

Anyway, I won’t go on about this further, except to remark that five thousand quid is a huge sum of money in terms of pamphlet publishing. My annual turnover is about eight thousand pounds. Last year there was a loss of about two. For 2008-2009 I should have come closer to breaking even but I haven’t done the books yet. So five thousand extra?!  I will be thinking very carefully how that money can be spent, apart from upgrading my Imac which will be step one. And I’ll report on that too, in Chapter Five of the Story, which goes out to subscribers.

I feel proud and pleased to get this money. And at the same time . . .  pamphlet publishing is obviously important to me, and although I willingly entered this competition for cash and kudos, this niche of publishing is not competitive in the ordinary way (except with itself, in the desire to get better and better).

The other publishers on the short list (and many who either didn’t enter or weren’t short listed) are not competitors; they are — what is the word? Not exactly ‘colleagues’ but close to that. Perhaps fellow workers, slogging away in slightly different territory. I admire the work of Templar, for example, very much. And Oystercatcher who won last year. I know little about Veer Books, would like to know more, but nothing of theirs has come in for review by Sphinx even . . . And there are some wonderful people who won’t have entered, doing remarkable work (see all the stories told in Sphinx over the last four years).

Think what a difference the Smith/Doorstop pamphlets have made over the last decade! And the publishers of the short-listed poets — tall-lighthouse, Roncadora Press, Flarestack (whose Selima Hill took the prize), Nine Arches. So far as I am concerned, there is something terrific about the activity, the dynamism that represents a small press. Without the inspiration of James Robertson’s Kettillonia, I would never have started. In Scotland alone, think of the late Duncan Glen’s Akros imprint, the very much alive Hamish Whyte’s Mariscat and Colin Will’s Calder Wood Press, and Koo Press in Aberdeen!  Think of the work of Hansel Press and  the amazing letter press-artist-poet Len McDermid! Think of the gorgeous pamphlets done by Sally Evans and Ian King of Diehard Press last year! Think of the marvellous range of publications celebrated on the Scottish Pamphlet Poetry Website!

There is plenty of celebration of individual poets — prizes galore.  This publisher’s award isn’t about an individual — it’s about the whole process of bringing the work to readers, bringing it into the light.

So it does occur to me that such sums of money, rather than going to a single prize winner, should perhaps be shared round a bit. What I want is to support this kind of activity, uphold high values of production and enterprise, increase good opportunities for aspiring and established poets, keep this bit of poetry activity vibrant and interesting. Winning is not about me as an individual — at least I certainly hope not. It’s about all the poets I’ve worked with and am still working with, the two excellent printers I use, the local post office, the man who sticks the stamps on the envelopes, Sarah who does (among other things) the website and email newsletter, Gillian who does the cover images, the subscribers — the hugely important subscribers, without which the thing wouldn’t even keep afloat.

Which is where I will stop for the moment. Much more to be said, but not yet. Thank you to all those people who have enthused, supported, helped. Thanks to the Sphinx reviewers who carry out this activity without recompense, except in appreciation and respect. Thanks to the amazing poets I’ve had the privilege of working with. And of course boundless thanks to Lady Marks for munificence and generosity towards this area of the arts.

What makes a good poetry pamphlet publisher?

The embargo was finally lifted so that means I’m allowed to mention being shortlisted again for the Michael Marks Pamphlet Publishers’ Award. This award business can get a bit stressful. Having been shortlisted last year, and filled out all the worthy statements about activities again on the entry form this year, I wasn’t worried about winning the money (though the money would come in very handy) so much as about being NOT shortlisted. What would that have meant? It might have signified slipping smartly downhill in terms of whatever is deemed good practice.

The embargo was finally lifted so that means I’m allowed to mention being shortlisted again for the Michael Marks Pamphlet Publishers’ Award. This award business can get a bit stressful. Having been shortlisted last year, and filled out all the worthy statements about activities again on the entry form this year, I wasn’t worried about winning the money (though the money would come in very handy) so much as about being NOT shortlisted. What would that have meant? It might have signified slipping smartly downhill in terms of whatever is deemed good practice.

 

But what makes a good pamphlet publisher? Who sets the standard? And can you separate pamphlet publishing from any other kind? The process of publishing a pamphlet of poetry is just the same as doing a book, isn’t it? And lots of pamphlet publishers, HappenStance included, have tiptoed into book form too.

The current MM shortlist of publishers is an interesting one. It is identical to last year’s, save Veer Books takes the place of tall-lighthouse, not because tall-l has shrunk in stature but because (I believe) they didn’t enter this year. One of the tall-lighthouse publications is listed on the poets’ list, which comes as no surprise: this is an imprint doing excellent work.

The shortlisted poets include, I am glad to say, The Terrors (Tom Chivers) which was reviewed warmly on the Sphinx website and a seven striper. The other five haven’t come in to me for review (I thought David Hart’s had, but I can’t find it). Hugh McMillan’s poem (and I recommend Roncadora for stunning individuality) wouldn’t have fitted the Sphinx requirements — it’s a pull-out publication (perhaps I should change the rules?) The others just didn’t come in for review, which suggests either people are unaware, still, of the Sphinx review facility, or they just forget about it.

Accolades are nice. Encouragement is lovely. Even publicity helps a bit in terms of spreading the word and getting readers for the publications (which is what it’s all about). I should add we were only allowed to list three publications in the publicity and for sale by PBS, although all the publications for 2009 were taken into consideration.

But I would like to see more transparency about the reasoning, especially for the publishers’ award. What sort of things should be rewarded? The different organisations are doing very different things, working on different funding systems. Really hard to compare qualitatively.

Which brings me to Sphinx International Po-rating Exercise. I am trying to make it sound grand because it has taken a grand amount of time and money to organise.

Sphinx reviews include a rating of poetry pamphlets which results in a ‘stripe’ recommendation. That recommendation is stated in a subtle way at the top of the review with a stripey graphic. Count the stripes and you get it. The idea is you read the reviews first: you don’t just goggle at the number. The stripes proceed from 1 through to 10, with halves along the way.

That rating is based on four criteria, some of which are more subjective than others. I’d like to think none of them were wholly subjective, since all Sphinx reviewers are good and thoughtful readers. However, over the period of using this system and commissioning three reviews for every publication, it has seemed to me that some reviewers were using the numbers slightly differently from others. That is to say, a 5 from one person meant pretty good, while another used a 5 to signify pretty bad. Equally, the production value — which you would think could be judged objectively — sometimes produced surprisingly wide variation.

So I carried out an exercise (sometimes I feel like one of those countries in Gulliver’s Travels, somewhere up in the clouds, maybe, doing weird things that no normal person could possibly countenance. But never mind). I posted copies of the same pamphlet to 36 reviewers and asked all of them to rate using the system above. I got back 33 ratings, which I collated and from which I drew some conclusions. It allowed me to set a suggested standard for at least production quality. From now on, we know what a 7.5 looks like.

On other criteria, individual judgement is crucial. However, I have done two things. One is to interpret the numbers with a verbal statement (see below for an example on ‘Quality of Poetry’)

10 =        Shakespeare

9  =          excellent

8  =          unquestionably good work

7  =          the best poems are good; there may be some weaker or flawed poems

6  =          has noteworthy strengths, though may be inconsistent, even inside individual poems

5  =          on the fence, doubtful about quality

4  =          poor writing with occasional flashes of not bad

3  =          weak

2  =          dreadful

1  =          beyond the pale

The second thing is to send a detailed report to reviewers so they can see where their ratings sit in relation to all the others. Some people do tend to rate higher, others lower — this is normal. I believe in some national examination systems, markers are sampled and high markers are adjusted down a little and low ones adjusted up. I’m not making any adjustments. Just showing the raters where they sit in the table.

A summary version of this report (without names or attributions) may appear on the Sphinx site in due course. The detailed version goes to reviewers this week, together with more pamphlets to review, some of which will be in the running for the Michael Marks Award next year.

Now I’m starting to feel really peculiar. I am either developing a monumental obsession, or there is something in the theory that judgement in this very wayward area of the arts, needs prodding and more self-awareness.

At the end of the year, I intend to publish the Sphinx high-raters of the year. Those pamphlets which come out as 7 or above are good. If it is a 9, it is outstanding in the view of at least three people. There is no five thousand quid to accompany this accolade: instead there will be three reviews — interesting, accessible and informative. I hope good publishers will enter their pamphlets: Sphinx reviews, 21 Hatton Green, Glenrothes, Fife KY7 4SD.

If the system takes off as it should, I will need more reviewers, especially women. So if interested, contact me with an example of your writing.

You have probably had enough of my ramblings now. However, Tim Love has published an interview with me on his blog. Sorry!