Helena Nelson – Page 39 – Unsuitable Blog and HappenStance News

Please, miss, my brain is full

The submissions month continues. My brain is now full. I’ve read a lot of poetry and sent back a lot of comments.

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The submissions month continues. My brain is now full. I’ve read a lot of poetry and sent back a lot of comments.

At the same time, many new HappenStance subscribers have arrived, which is marvellous. Perhaps it’s because I’ve stopped being backward in coming forward. Now I just say (especially to people sending submissions) ‘Please subscribe’. It doesn’t cost much and it builds the readership. And it’s the easiest way to find out how things work here.

I was worried the Michael Marks Award would mean loads of submissions and no sales. I was wrong. It increased sales slightly but made little difference to submissions. All the packets coming in are interesting; some are good (more than I can publish). The strongest have an impressive track record in magazine publication, across the UK (not just in Scotland or Wales), as well as online. There are hidden secrets, of course, in terms of which publications bring most kudos. It’s fair to assume, though, that the harder it is to get poems accepted in any one outlet, the more impressive it is when it happens.

Some poets spend ten (or more) years on style and method, placing things gradually more successfully in the best magazines. Others have work published here and there (lots on line) and think they’re ready for a pamphlet collection. It all depends what’s meant by ‘ready’. By and large, the second lot are nowhere near as good as the first, though they may be original in unpredictable ways.

Not everybody has a decade to work at it. Increasingly, people are coming to poetry late and with a sense of urgency. That’s understandable too. But poems have their own kind of time. They won’t be rushed. Only a handful will survive anyway. In some ways, publication is the least of it. The maturing poem (like good wine), and the privilege of making one, is the magical thing.

Meanwhile, huge effort going on in the background getting the next set of Sphinx reviews together. The website (thanks to Michael Marks) is about to get a radical overhaul. And another wee project is in hand too, involving some silliness and fun. More on that anon.

Here’s looking at you, Kudo

Summer in Fife has gone away again. Yesterday it rained most of the day and was grey and chilly. Meanwhile news reports persist of heat waves and droughts in England. No need to water the garden here. And who cares? The smell of honeysuckle in the rain is amazing. And lilac. I have no lilac in my garden but I love lilac in the rain so much I would tramp miles just to breathe it in.

Last week was spent achieving much less than expected (as usual). This is submissions month and they have been steadily arriving. However, it’s been good carefully reading them and finding interesting things in every envelope. I am predisposed in favour of those who have researched the press. It isn’t difficult to find out something about the way I work. Nor is it rocket science to have read (and sent feedback on) some of the publications.

I also brood a lot about this business of expecting a poet to promote and sell the work, since some people sending work in clearly haven’t thought about this side of things. I don’t like the idea of poet as promotional whizzkid but without their active involvement, sales will be low. I go daft doing flyers and publicity, and sending out things to those and such as those, and PBS choice and Callum Macdonald and Michael Marks, and review copies and word of mouth. Even then, so much more could be done if I had more time. I’m endlessly grateful to my own poets, most of whom are wonderfully effective in drumming up trade — and not just for their own publications — for HappenStance in general.

Chris Hamilton-Emery says somewhere that not all poets want to sell their work. That sounds crazy but there’s truth in it. Poets want readers but not the messy business of selling. Poetry should be purer than that, poets uncontaminated by filthy lucre. Publishers are obliged to get contaminated. Otherwise, they can’t stay in the business of printing the next harvest from Mount Parnassus. Although it would be nice just to give the poetry away. Secretly I do quite a lot of that.

Generosity’s an underrated poetic attribute. Generous poets buy (and help promote) the work of their friends and peers. I learned this early on, when my first collection was published. A couple of established poet friends sent for several copies and passed them on to friends. I was deeply touched (and surprised), but I remembered this, and have done it for others since. What goes around comes around, as they say in Fife. Generous poets sell well because their friends and peers return the favour.

I’ve been working on the current set of Sphinx reviews too. It takes a long time to edit all the work and subdue it into the correct format (three reviews on each pamphlet). Assembling three reviews, doing the edit, working out the stripe rating, getting it into web format and posting it on the website takes at least an hour per pamphlet, and currently I’m working on 21 of these, with some still to come in.

I’m planning to give some sort of fanfare to those with the highest rating this time: Sphinx high-stripers. Not money, but kudos. Here’s a useless but interesting fact: the mistaken idea that ‘kudos’ is a plural noun has led to another word, ‘kudo’. You could, theoretically, be awarded one kudo. How many kudos did you expect, kiddo?

Sphinx 12 in the oven

Sphinx 12 is at the printer’s. Lots of conversation about the cover which is meant to have yellow print on a black background. Black, obviously, because it’s the last Sphinx ever.

I’ve never done this reverse printing thing before. What they do is print on yellow board, so actually the whole cover is printed black and the un-inked bits come out yellow, which means it’s yellow on the inside. Hope it comes out looking good. Must use an awful lot of black toner. This is also the Chicken edition (among other things). There’s an interview with Doug Savage in cartoons, as well as more chickens than usual.

Sphinx 12 is at the printer’s. Lots of conversation about the cover which is meant to have yellow print on a black background. Black, obviously, because it’s the last Sphinx ever.

It’s the longest Sphinx ever. I was trying to rein it back to 56 pages but in the end it crept to 60 and so I’m hoping my hefty backdated tax rebate will come through in time to pay for it.

I was reviewing Dannie Abse’s remarkable little book Two For Joy, which took me back to his remarkable ‘Epithalamium’ (how could I have forgotten this wonderful poem?) and from there to the National Poetry Archive to listen to Abse himself reading, because I’ve never met him or heard him live. He has a most beautiful voice, both in life and on the page.

And somehow Abse’s Epithalamium led me to Charles Causley, also in the Archive. But I’ve been hankering after more Causley for ages, so I ordered his Collected Poems, which I had meant to do some years ago, and then his Collected Poems for Children too. I did meet Charles Causley once, a very long time ago, when I was not much more than a kid myself. I liked him then and I liked him now. It is a funny thing how you can be not all that familiar with the work of a poet and yet their rhythms and their quality of voice stays with you. Causley has always stayed with me. I love ballads. I love that tradition, and he is squarely in it.

On Friday, I should have gone to the launch of David Troupes’ first collection Parsimony, in Edinburgh. I didn’t make it, though I wish I had. I should finish work in college by mid-afternoon Friday but I never manage it and instead I am always one of the very last to leave the building. It is a weakness in me that I leave late and take more work home with me, but I’m too old to change. So I didn’t get to the launch, but I do recommend this poet, and his book. He is one of the poets who didn’t appear on my list because he was offered a full collection before I had offered to do a pamphlet, and so I have a personal interest in how he does . . . .

David is a Two Ravens poet, and I recommend Sharon’s rant (posted on her Two Ravens blog) this morning about reviewing in national newspapers, none of which I shall be reading this morning. Back to looking at pages of new pamphlets and accomplishing at least one more review.

But I’m ending with Causley as the last word on the Sphinx. This is from his children’s collection:

Out in the Desert

Out in the desert lies the sphinx
It never eats and it never drinx
Its body quite solid without any chinx
And when the sky’s all purples and pinx
(As if it was painted with coloured inx)
And the sun it ever so swiftly sinx
Behind the hills in a couple of twinx
You may hear (if you’re lucky) a bell that clinx
And also tolls and also tinx
And they say at the very same sound the sphinx
It sometimes smiles and it sometimes winx:

But nobody knows just what it thinx.

Three cheers for Charles Combustible Causley
Of whose poems each one of us ought to read moresley.

Meanwhile, I’m delighted to report that Thomas McKean’s Conversation With Ruth Pitter has attracted far more orders than I had expected at this stage. Reading The Rialto yesterday, I noticed Dean Parkin mentioning Queen’s Gold Medal For Poetry winners: Don Paterson was the most recent of course, but Dean did a swift gallop through previous winners. Stevie Smith was among their number. But Ruth Pitter was the first woman to win this award ever. Remember Ruth Pitter. I love Stevie Smith but I love Pitter more. A pamphlet Selected, which will include a couple of previously unpublished poems, is in hand. Watch this space.

Wabbit

Exhaustion has officially set in.

Gina Wilson’s Scissors, paper, stone is done. I love it. But then, I would.

Gill Andrews’ The Thief is at the printer’s. I love it. See above.

Exhaustion has officially set in.

Gina Wilson’s Scissors, paper, stone is done. I love it. But then, I would.

Gill Andrews’ The Thief is at the printer’s. I love it. See above.

The college term has ended. Things have been put in packets and posted to all sorts of people. New submissions have started to arrive.

I anticipated that the Michael Marks Award would result in more submissions. And that most of them would not have found their way to any submission guidelines on the website. I was right. Sigh.

No-nos for people sending poems to publishers:

1. Do not write, Dear Sir, Dear Madam or Dear HappenStance (insert name of publisher). Find the NAME of the person you are sending your stuff to.

2. Ensure you have read (REALLY read) some of the publications produced by that publisher, so you can mention them like you mean it. Otherwise forget it.

3. Remember, when sending your poems to a publisher, you’re asking them to spend cash and time printing your work, for which they will get nothing but kudos. And probably not much of that.

If, after all that, you are reading this and considering sending some poems to me, send them anyway, but hey — subscribe to HappenStance first, if you haven’t already. It is inexpensive and it is worth it. Read Chapter 4. Know something about how things work here.

Having a few days off now. Sleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep beckons.

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.

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.

Party preliminaries

It’s complicated. In 2005 I bought ten ISB numbers. To my surprise I’d used them all up within two years and I bought another hundred.

Three years later I’m over half way through that hundred. The idea at the birthday party, Saturday June 12th, is to do a kind of ‘This is your life’, recalling all that’s been and indicating a bit of what’s to come. But there’s a lot of it.

It’s complicated. In 2005 I bought ten ISB numbers. To my surprise I’d used them all up within two years and I bought another hundred.

I think about twenty of the poets should be there, all reading little bits or in one case quite a lot. Some is happy, some is sad, some is performancey, some is music, some is cake. It will be grrrrrrrreat.

In preparation I am making lists and lists of lists. Up to now I have been making electronic lists upstairs, and sending out more invitations to people I think I might have forgotten or whose reply I think I have managed to lose. Soon I am going downstairs to make more lists on pieces of normal paper.

Meanwhile, the Ruth Pitter Selected came home this week and so did David Ford’s Punch. The former is cheering and consolatory: Pitter has that effect. She is a magical poet. Punch, on the other hand, is one of the darkest collections I have done. Many of the poems have stunning impact: they are also often sinister and somewhat scary. Neither David nor Ruth can be at the party (though for somewhat different reasons) but Gina Wilson and Gill Andrews (the next two pamphlets) should be there.

Also expecting a whean of others – a plethora of poets including, Andrew Philip, Rob A Mackenzie, Clare Best, Jeremy Page, Alison Brackenbury, Janet Loverseed, D A Prince, Sally Festing, Jon Stone, Robin Vaughan-Williams, Ross Kightly, Paula Jennings, Jennifer Copley, Stewart Conn, Christine de Luca, Margaret Christie — and MORE! Honestly this is THE poetry event of the year.

Do join us, (Scottish Poetry Library, Edinburgh, 3.00 for 3.30) but let me know because numbers are swelling (and swell). nell@happenstancepress.com

: Ruth Pitter cover

LUPO 10

Never mind HappenStance’s fifth birthday party ( I don’t quite mean that of course), take a look at Lighten-up Online‘s tenth issue.

Editor and light verse impresario Martin Parker aspires to raise the game of contemporary light verse (already celebrated on paper in the last bastions of the old guard: The New Statesman, Literary Review, The Oldie, The Spectator) on the world wide web. He’s succeeding.

Never mind HappenStance’s fifth birthday party ( I don’t quite mean that of course), take a look at Lighten-up Online‘s tenth issue.

Issue ten has a new clearer, lighter look. Best yet.

LUPO has had flashes of brilliance from the start. This time there’s a feeling that all the contributions are pretty damn smart. You won’t like them all equally well, but there’s pzazz, there’s style. It’s different. You can sing along.

And how could anyone resist this quarter’s competition?

Savouring Salt

Yesterday was the Salt Cellar opening at the Scottish Poetry Library — a lovely event, full of verve and entertainment and interesting people. Wena Poon, author of Lions in Winter, flew from the States to the UK to read, and a most memorable reading at that (I love all writing that focusses on cake)! So there were two American voices because Crashaw-Prize-winning Ryan Van Winkle read too. And Scottish: Rob Mackenzie, Andy Philip and Sandy Hutchison. Singing kept creeping in. Rob sang a couple of lines. Sandy sang a whole song. Ryan became Springsteen and deserved a toast for that alone. There were north of England voices too: the remarkable Tim Turnbull looking so good with that amazing moustache and of course Chris Hamilton-Emery himself. Really lovely to meet him and Jen in person, not to mention the kids.

I had a rendez-vous with Gill Andrews an hour or so before the Salt event to go through poems in her pamphlet (which is going to be marvellous, by the way, once we settle on the contents — and the title). Possible titles so far:

Profit and Loss
Where I Am At
Fabric
For All the Wrong Reasons
Webs
Passport to Anywhere
Further

We sat on high stools at the window of the Starbucks just around the corner from the poetry library so we could spread the poems out sideways. When you sit here, you have the advantage (among other advantages because this is a nice cafe) of seeing visitors to SPL walk past you.

Two especially memorable moments. First seeing Rob Mackenzie walk past the window on the way to the reading. I attracted his attention (waving) and he stopped and turned. He was wearing a brilliant, beautifully blue shirt which perfectly matched the packet of Doritos he was eating. On the packet: COOL, ORIGINAL.

Second Starbucks moment: while waiting to get into the Ladies, glanced at the bookcase of free books for reading in the cafe and saw a hardback copy of Ariadne’s Children, a novel by my brother-in-law Roddy Beaton (or ex-brother-in-law, if you want to get technical). I have it in paperback, not hardback. Naturally, I seized it, opened it. It was Angus Calder’s copy. Angus’s library, spread all round Edinburgh now he is gone. I wonder if he reviewed it? I had to have it, of course. They let me take it away and I left Jeremy Page and Sphinx 12 in its place.

Where will all our books go after we’re dead? Who will find them and pick them up and take them home?

All set for the birthday party in SPL in two weeks time. Saturday June 12th, three for three thirty. Are you coming?

Dark Wood goes out

This week lots of Jeremy Page chapbooks went in the post to those and such as those — a flurry of orders through the Zen shop.

: Jeremy Page’s pamphlet

At the same time, David Ford’s Punch went off to Dolphin Press and so did Ruth Pitter’s Selected. I’ve been busy with all the associated bits and pieces: flyers for all, updating the ‘in print’ list, doing the poet bios for the website, printing flyers, attacking the sticky willie in the garden . . . Oh no, the last of these wasn’t exactly at the same time.It’s just the fact that the sticky willie gets everywhere.

So far (apart from Ruth Pitter who, though with us on paper, is absent in body) it has been a very male year. Four guys. I’m now working with two women: Gina Wilson and Gill Andrews. Very very different from each other. Also very different from anything else I’ve published.

I’m not sure these can be ready for the HappenStance Birthday Party on June 12th (in the Scottish Poetry Library at 3.00 ish), but we’ll see. I hope their authors will be there and reading a poem or two, as will lots of other HappenStance authors and subscribers. My mother and sister are coming from Sussex. There will be a cake made by my daughter. There will be music (son-in-law). Do put the date in your diary. It’s an open event but let me know if you’d like to come (nell@happenstancepress.com) because the library is not gigantic and the cake might not be big enough.

It was suddenly Summer here in Scotland yesterday. The old lady in the queue in the post office in front of me had to sit down. People were flapping leaflets in front of their faces to keep cool. Matt got the fan down from the spare bedroom and sat in front of it. Some of the new bedding plants went limp and keeled over. The tiny crab apple ‘tree’ (really a sprig) that I got for a fiver from Aldi burst into blossom.

This morning I woke to the sound of heavy rain. Back to normal.

PS Here’s an interesting review of Robin Vaughan-Williams’ The Manager by Ben Wilkinson

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.

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!