Uncertain how to respond to a Tory- inititated review of libraries with a Labour government-in-waiting listening in; under pressure to increase issues on the one hand and stock quality books on the other; temporarily stymied in their attempts to jump on the information superhighway, it's putting it mildly to say that public libraries have been going through a rough patch lately. In fact after years of being under funded and undervalued, they're becoming chronically glum.
Yet as we all know (and as I became fed up of saying after ten years as a library arts officer), your local community library still offers a unique Imagination Service providing access to world culture, a democratic breathing space in which to sit and think and read and write. Every library contains surprises and delights - literary gems and creative connections you just can't find anywhere else.
So how can public libraries around the country act quickly and positively to prove their worth as providers of literature? By adopting a poetry policy, that's how. I'd like to propose that the Library Association and the Poetry Society announce a collaboration to ensure that every library in the land becomes a registered 'Poetry Place' within the next 12 months. That means that each one would guarantee to provide its users with what they need to develop an interest in Britain's most buoyant and participatory artform. We've heard about Labour's plans for libraries and the information superhighway - alongside that let's build a national network of Imagination Services focused on poetry.
National Poetry Day has proved how widespread is public interest in poetry; thousands have participated in the three NPDs so far and millions watched poetry programmes on the day; press and media interest both locally and nationally has been astounding.
The New Generation Poets promotion of May 1993 led to newspaper leaders and articles on the highly talented younger poets writing in the 90s and poetry has continued to figure in the press since then, However, the Arts Council's recent Poetry Audit has revealed the huge gap between the number of people who say they like poetry and have a few favourite poems or write verse as a therapeutic hobby and the still small number who attend readings or buy contemporary 'slim volumes'.
Meanwhile, past projects like Robert Walters' groundbreaking 'Getting Into Poetry' scheme in Bradford Libraries proved how issues can increase dramatically when poetry is properly promoted. The Society's own 'Poetry-Friendly Library' traising sessions have focused on the special role libraries can play in bridging the gap between poetry and people.
Poetry doesn't ignore most people anymore - popular writers like Simon Armitage and Carol Ann Duffy use everyday language in original ways to make texts which need time and concentration to fathom, not a dictionary and a guide to Greek Myth. The perzazz of a good live performer like Benjamin Zephaniah, John Hegley and more literary but equally accomplished readers can't be reproduced entirely on the page, but can be loaned on tapes and videos. As a tool for work with local community and special interest groups, there's nothing like a poem. Fern Hill by Dylan Thomas brings childhood memories flooding back; Moniza Alvi's highly personal poems about returning to India after growing up in England speak volumes about 'equal opps' issues; the work of American poet Sharon Olds is guaranteed to touch any parent. Find her latest book The Wellspring read the one about the dead gerbil and weep.
But where will you find it? It won't be in most bookshops and will be hard to find even if it is and will be hard to buy should you ever manage to find it.
If you've stood in a bookshop trying to persuade yourself to spend almost ten quid on a thin book of nearly blank pages by someone you've never heard of, you will see the advantages of the library for poetry lovers. Poetry books are extremely 'borrowable': light to carry home, easy to flick through, no danger of being stuck half way through the story when you need to return them. Keep them at the counter like sweets at the checkout, advertise their presence with posters that contain whole works, not just extracts and blurb... it doesn't take much to make a library poetry-friendly.
For a community library to become a Poetry Place it would need to do the following:
Of course many libraries do many of these things already and much more, but what's sorely lacking is a consistent scheme throughout the UK. It's not enough for individual libraries to keep surprising users with innovative promotions and activities organised by enthusiasts on unpaid overtime; the system as a whole should be promising to deliver a clearly defined service in relation to literature - and poetry in particular.
It wouldn't be costly to equip libraries with a core poetry collection, likmostly paperback anthologies. For the price of a membership subscription the Poetry Society could provide library members with quarterly updates on new books, events and activities; our existing publications Poetry Review and Poetry News plus the Poetry Book Society's quarterly selections of new books already provide the basis for such a service.
Floods of calls and letters reach us from members of the public wanting basic advice on poetry groups, competitions and publishing opportunities. Many of these have been referred by libraries which ought to be equipped to handle such requests for themselves - and the Poetry Society ought to be helping them. As the Milk Marketing Board is to milkmen the PoSoc should be to libraries, schools and other 'literature providers'.
I recently visited the Poets House in New York, an organisation which presents an exhibition of recent poetry books to the American Library Association's Annual Convention, reaching more than 18,000 librarians to show them how to make the best use of the books they buy. We need an equivalent scheme in Britain which places poetry at the heart of libraries.
And if after all it turns out to be computer screens not bookshelves that line the
libraries of the next millennium - well, there's plenty of poetry floating about in
cyberspace. 'It's low band width' says the Independent's Web correspondent Marek Kohn;
poetry is concise, crosses boundaries, is quick to download - which raises copyright
problems of course, but that's another subject. Poetry is light on its feet and jumps at
every new opportunity to reach out. Just when it was being written off as clapped out and
old fashioned, poetry bit back, became trendy, media friendly, shouted out about itself in
the language of our times. Use the power of poetry to shout about libraries, to help the
public and politicians see them afresh, to fight off the gloom and keep the breathing room
breathing.
Chris Meade is the Director of the National
Poetry Society
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Last updated: 25 Mar 97