The Poetry Business relocates to Sheffield
After twenty years based in Huddersfield, the Poetry Business has now relocated to Sheffield and is set for major rebranding and expansion.
The Poetry Business was established in 1986 by Peter Sansom, became a limited company in 1991 and is now an Arts Council RFO. The company comprises a literary press (Smith/Doorstop) and magazine (the North) and runs a national poetry competition, writing workshops for beginning writers and an advanced course for established writers.
The current directors, Peter Sansom and Ann Sansom, are nationally-known poets, published by Carcanet and Bloodaxe respectively, and are widely regarded as among the best writing-tutors in the country.
The beginning
Smith/Doorstop’s first title, in 1986, was a double-pamphlet by Simon Armitage and Clare Chapman. Later that year, Ian McMillan and Martyn Wiley’s Smith/Doorstop pamphlet sold 2,000 copies: in poetry terms a best seller!
In the same year, issue one of the North was printed and included early work by Ian McMillan and Carol Ann Duffy, alongside the first poems by Simon Armitage.
Today
Twenty years on and Smith/Doorstop titles have won or been shortlisted for most of the major poetry awards, including the Forward and T S Eliot prizes.
The North poets have been shortlisted three times for the Forward Best Poem Prize (in 1995, 2003 and 07); and, in 2005, Paul Farley won the prize outright for his poem, ‘Liverpool Disappears for a Billionth of Second.’
The Book & Pamphlet Competition has been judged by some of the country’s finest writers, and the judge for 2008 is Michael Longley, TS Eliot Prize winner.
The Writing Days are ‘open’ workshops, held monthly in the business premises (with occasional ‘away-days’ at festivals), and they attract poets from around the region and from further afield. (Jean Harrison’s poem, ‘Woman on the Moon’, written at a Writing Day, was shortlisted for the Forward (Best Poem) Prize.)
The Writing School was an Arts Council initiative, responding to the lack of support and mentoring for more established writers, and is a customised form of the MA Poetry that Peter ran for 10 years. Places are limited to 12 for the 18-month course, and are keenly contested (application by portfolio and cv).
The future
Over the next eighteen months, the Poetry Business is set to build on its existing successes (increasing its output, introducing hardback titles and launching new writing workshops and a women’s writers’ group) and to develop new areas with the hosting of literary events, study days, residentials and combined media activities.
Ann and Peter are members of the Poetry Society poetryclass, and are intending to bring some of that project and other poetry and education development to Sheffield.
In addition, there will now be an annual Sheffield Poetry Prize to run alongside the national competition. The competition will be open to Sheffield poets only, with a prize of £100 in book tokens, publication in The North and online, and a short reading.
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