Andrea Brady on the Whiteness of British Poetry

Yesterday The Conversation published this piece by Andrea Brady, who discusses the under-representation of poets of color in British poetry and the conversations (or lack there of) surrounding race. The article begins by remarking on Claudia Rankine winning the Forward prize (which we posted about here). Rankine, as Brady's notices, was the only non-white poet shortlisted for the award. The crux of the issue for Brady: "British media coverage of Rankine and of a series of recent US poetry scandals suggests that conversations [in the U.K.] about poetry and race still mostly happen by proxy." More:

The UK media is quick to cover racial controversies in the US poetry world. Michael Derrick Hudson stole the name Yi-Fen Chou – a Chinese high school classmate – in order to lubricate his passage into the Best American Poetry. Vanessa Place tweeted lines from Gone with the Wind spoken by black characters, under the banner of a lurid caricature Mammy. Kenneth Goldsmith read out Michael Brown’s autopsy report, strategically edited to culminate with a description of Brown’s “unremarkable” genitals.

In the US, these scandals prompted investigations into editorial policy, peer review, conference organisation, funding for academic speakers, community organising and activism, as well as serious essays on the history and currency of white supremacy in poetry communities. But there has been little discussion of that kind about British poetry.

Worse in Britain

Many American poets of colour have pointed out that these scandals are part of a structure of white privilege. Literary journals, anthologies, presses and syllabi are sites of segregation. This is even more true in the UK than it is in the US. Yet British poets, let alone the British press, seem reluctant to discuss it.

Numbers are notoriously difficult to come by, but the proportion of people of colour published by British poetry presses, magazines, and anthologies is low. According to the Free Verse report commissioned by the Arts Council in 2007, less than 1% of poetry published by major presses in the UK was written by black or Asian poets.

Brady goes on to further examine issues of under-representation in British poetry, as well as "authentic" poems, and segregated performance spaces. Read it all at The Conversation.