Back in 1993 I had the somewhat dizzying experience of having a pamphlet I'd collated, stapled and hand-folded myself and published via my press Scratch be shortlisted for the Best First Collection category of the 2nd Forward Prize. (Anthology 1994). That was Helen Kitson's Seeings Believing. Helen went on to publish a debut full-length with Bloodaxe, before not publishing for some years, then writing novels. Her trajectory more or less follows what you describe. First collections are like a knockout cup win, rather than building a championship winning team, maybe. I remember Margaret Drabble and Liz Lochhead were judges that year, and were very nice to country mouse me at the prize do - in those days drinks at the Groucho rather than a reading - unlike one of the other judges who I recall pretty much turning on his heels when I was introduced to him! Helen's book was very much a wild card and unexpected selection to everyone, and I think that category gives judges that freedom to back a hunch - reputations have yet to be made to be respected by the judges perhaps. Scratch had four poems in the anthology that year - and after that never hit again despite publishing some fine pamphlets by the likes of David Morley, Matthew Francis and Ruth Valentine.
I tend to agree with your comments re first collections. I also think under the surface of the patterns you can also see the implicit hierarchy of publishers, that although frayed, still holds sway.
Thanks so much for commenting. I think you're absolutely right that the implicit hierarchy of publishers is still pretty obvious and, indeed, largely unchanged. Yes the highly-acclaimed-start, some-more-poetry (that doesn't for whatever reason quite break through) then switch-to-novels seems a very common pattern. I do quite often have the impression when reading some younger poets that they are writing poetry to demonstrate that they "are a writer", but that they are not necessarily really poets (if you see what I mean). I read a lot of poetry which strikes me as undoubtedly well-written but not necessarily poetic and not very deeply-rooted. I can see that, practically speaking, if you know you want to write, then poetry is a non-lucrative but also quite low-cost entry point -- it's much easier to write some poems and try to get them published then to start with a whole novel or even short stories. So perhaps there's a pragmatic element at play and some or most of the people who end up as novelists were more natural novelists anyway. But equally people might turn to fiction or screenwriting or whatever for pragmatic reasons, and still feel privately a poet above all.
One thing that confused me a bit looking over the Forward records was the status of pamphlets -- some "first collections" authors were clearly shortlisted for a pamphlet, like the case you describe, whereas others already had a pamphlet and were shortlisted for a first "full" collection. It seems a bit fuzzy, but perhaps the rules are clearer now.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot over the years, how first collections are always different from the subsequent ones because they can draw on material that has been written over 5, 10, however many years the writer has been going beforehand, and the others are then the results of 3-5 years work between books.
Regardless, I find debuts often try too hard to display a breadth of technique/topic, and the better ones are more cohesive or focus on a particular context. Maybe Ocean Vuong’s first book was the last debut I was absolutely blown away by, but speaking as a current judge for the forwards, I feel like debuts sometimes contain a palpable degree of the writers’ anxiety or second guessing under the surface of the words that can bleed through to the reader.
This is a great point. Someone else on here (I think, or perhaps in private correspondence) pointed out a while ago that the intervals between collections have in general become shorter, even as collections themselves have become longer on average, to the detriment of quality. And that would only tend to exacerbate the distinction you point out.
And yes you're surely right that a poet's best 50 poems, or whatever, might not make for a very coherent collection at all. As a reader, I find the focus on the theme and coherence of poetry collections a bit strange, because I rarely read them that way, and certainly never after the first time. But I appreciate I'm a lone (or nearly lone) voice on this one, and like it or not that's how poetry publishing works. (Interestingly, there seems much less emphasis on this in France, but I suspect that's partly just because books of poetry generally don't have an blurb on the back!)
almost eerie to think of r.s. thomas being included in an arbitrary forward sampler given he seems like a poet from another age compared to the others, and was never a player of the game (or a playing-nicely-with-others kind of poet) at the time.
as for hill, I was re-reading some of his late(r) stuff just this afternoon and while I agree his early work is much more enjoyable, what he gave up in lyricism he seemed to substitute with much mordant humour... 'Poetry aspires/to the condition of Hebrew' lol
It really is isn't it? (about Thomas). I started reading him in the mid-late 90s and I remember being surprised at the time when I realised that I was reading a new collection, that he was still alive. Maybe they thought it was just a bit too "obvious" to give him the prize.
I do like a lot of late Hill, I agree the pleasures are different but real. I do find him a very sad voice though, in a funny way, and more so as time went on. Oddly, much more so than Thomas, despite the austerity of his voice.
Back in 1993 I had the somewhat dizzying experience of having a pamphlet I'd collated, stapled and hand-folded myself and published via my press Scratch be shortlisted for the Best First Collection category of the 2nd Forward Prize. (Anthology 1994). That was Helen Kitson's Seeings Believing. Helen went on to publish a debut full-length with Bloodaxe, before not publishing for some years, then writing novels. Her trajectory more or less follows what you describe. First collections are like a knockout cup win, rather than building a championship winning team, maybe. I remember Margaret Drabble and Liz Lochhead were judges that year, and were very nice to country mouse me at the prize do - in those days drinks at the Groucho rather than a reading - unlike one of the other judges who I recall pretty much turning on his heels when I was introduced to him! Helen's book was very much a wild card and unexpected selection to everyone, and I think that category gives judges that freedom to back a hunch - reputations have yet to be made to be respected by the judges perhaps. Scratch had four poems in the anthology that year - and after that never hit again despite publishing some fine pamphlets by the likes of David Morley, Matthew Francis and Ruth Valentine.
I tend to agree with your comments re first collections. I also think under the surface of the patterns you can also see the implicit hierarchy of publishers, that although frayed, still holds sway.
Thanks so much for commenting. I think you're absolutely right that the implicit hierarchy of publishers is still pretty obvious and, indeed, largely unchanged. Yes the highly-acclaimed-start, some-more-poetry (that doesn't for whatever reason quite break through) then switch-to-novels seems a very common pattern. I do quite often have the impression when reading some younger poets that they are writing poetry to demonstrate that they "are a writer", but that they are not necessarily really poets (if you see what I mean). I read a lot of poetry which strikes me as undoubtedly well-written but not necessarily poetic and not very deeply-rooted. I can see that, practically speaking, if you know you want to write, then poetry is a non-lucrative but also quite low-cost entry point -- it's much easier to write some poems and try to get them published then to start with a whole novel or even short stories. So perhaps there's a pragmatic element at play and some or most of the people who end up as novelists were more natural novelists anyway. But equally people might turn to fiction or screenwriting or whatever for pragmatic reasons, and still feel privately a poet above all.
One thing that confused me a bit looking over the Forward records was the status of pamphlets -- some "first collections" authors were clearly shortlisted for a pamphlet, like the case you describe, whereas others already had a pamphlet and were shortlisted for a first "full" collection. It seems a bit fuzzy, but perhaps the rules are clearer now.
Everything was fuzzier in the 90s...
I’ve been thinking about this a lot over the years, how first collections are always different from the subsequent ones because they can draw on material that has been written over 5, 10, however many years the writer has been going beforehand, and the others are then the results of 3-5 years work between books.
Regardless, I find debuts often try too hard to display a breadth of technique/topic, and the better ones are more cohesive or focus on a particular context. Maybe Ocean Vuong’s first book was the last debut I was absolutely blown away by, but speaking as a current judge for the forwards, I feel like debuts sometimes contain a palpable degree of the writers’ anxiety or second guessing under the surface of the words that can bleed through to the reader.
This is a great point. Someone else on here (I think, or perhaps in private correspondence) pointed out a while ago that the intervals between collections have in general become shorter, even as collections themselves have become longer on average, to the detriment of quality. And that would only tend to exacerbate the distinction you point out.
And yes you're surely right that a poet's best 50 poems, or whatever, might not make for a very coherent collection at all. As a reader, I find the focus on the theme and coherence of poetry collections a bit strange, because I rarely read them that way, and certainly never after the first time. But I appreciate I'm a lone (or nearly lone) voice on this one, and like it or not that's how poetry publishing works. (Interestingly, there seems much less emphasis on this in France, but I suspect that's partly just because books of poetry generally don't have an blurb on the back!)
almost eerie to think of r.s. thomas being included in an arbitrary forward sampler given he seems like a poet from another age compared to the others, and was never a player of the game (or a playing-nicely-with-others kind of poet) at the time.
as for hill, I was re-reading some of his late(r) stuff just this afternoon and while I agree his early work is much more enjoyable, what he gave up in lyricism he seemed to substitute with much mordant humour... 'Poetry aspires/to the condition of Hebrew' lol
It really is isn't it? (about Thomas). I started reading him in the mid-late 90s and I remember being surprised at the time when I realised that I was reading a new collection, that he was still alive. Maybe they thought it was just a bit too "obvious" to give him the prize.
I do like a lot of late Hill, I agree the pleasures are different but real. I do find him a very sad voice though, in a funny way, and more so as time went on. Oddly, much more so than Thomas, despite the austerity of his voice.
sad for sure. the scholar-poet who knew too much. 'Reading immortal literature's a curse...'
Probably focusing on a different era than you have in mind, but:
https://open.substack.com/pub/forgottenpoets?r=2u2cxe&utm_medium=ios
Thank you Maria!
Should add that I very much enjoy reading it myself.