Poet Pinched
AFTER POACHING the promising poet Jo Shapcott from Oxford University Press, publishing house Faber and Faber were this week celebrating her triumph in Britain's biggest poetry award, the prestigious £10,000 Forward Prize.
Educated at Dublin, Cambridge and Harvard, 46 year old Shapcott has compiled three poetry collections. Her most recent, My Life Asleep, caught the attention of this year's judges and makes her the first person to have won the National Poetry Competition twice. Erica Wagner, literary editor of TheTimes and judge for the event said the decision was unanimous: 'it is an outstanding collection-vivid and original. It is a leap forward from her other two books.' Last year's winner of The Forward Prize was Ted Hughes for Birthday Letters and the competition was no less fierce this year; Paul Muldoon's Hay and Carol Ann Duffy's The World's Wife were stacked on the pile of 100 collections and 100 single poems that the judges ploughed through.
Axed by Oxford University Press when they ceased to publish poetry earlier this year, Shapcott joined the pack of poets seeking other publishers. Her path to Faber and Faber is being followed by Oxford poets Jamie McKendrick and Keith Douglas. Assistant poetry editor at Faber and Faber, Jane Beaver, reinforces the power of the poet: 'poetry is the backbone of our business.'
OUP has since merged with Carcane Press, whose Publicity and Marketing Manager Gaynor Hodsten, could not hide her contempt for Shapcott's success: 'Everybody's got poets on their list that win prizes, it's of no consequence.' Basking in the limelight of her recent success, Shapcott shrugged off OUP's rejection with, 'that's history.' The colossal advertising benefits generated by a National Poetry Prize-winner have not gone unobserved by OUP and a sense of regret hung over the firm this week. Unwilling to comment, Caroline Pailing, Public Affairs Officer at OUP muttered: 'We can do no more than echo Shapcott's words: 'that's history.'
7th Oct 1999