I am standing for election to the Board of Trustees – here is my statement

I am very grateful to Kate Clanchy, Robyn Marsack and George Szirtes for nominating me for election to the Board. I am wholeheartedly committed to poetry: the enjoyment of it, the writing and publishing of it, and its wider community. The Poetry Society is essential to the life of poetry in the UK and I have been involved from the beginning with the requisition for an EGM and the petition. I would like to contribute what I can to the Society’s future.

It seems to me vital that the Poetry Society includes voices from the regions and from Scotland. The range of poetries in Britain, the talent and innovation around poetry and literature, these are the strengths of poetry in the UK and the Poetry Society can only benefit from bringing in voices and skills from all over the country. I live far from London, on Scotland’s west coast, and whilst I am connected and involved with what’s going on, this also means that I am not part of any particular faction.

Alongside writing three books of poetry I worked for several years in publishing at Oxford University Press, and also over the last decade have worked extensively with the Arts Councils of England and Scotland on many literature projects. These are outlined in my CV which you can download here shortly (or see ‘About’), but broadly, this experience allows me to bring to the Society Board not just an understanding of Arts Council funding and a sense of how artists can work fruitfully with funding bodies, but also a clear grasp of how poetry can thrive in the real world, one that includes hard economics and powerful social media. Currently I produce the Literature Programme at Cove Park, Scotland’s International Artist Residency Centre. This is a small, publicly funded arts charity, with, like the Poetry Society, immense reach. I am not an HR, charity or law specialist: what I can bring to the Society is knowledge and solid experience of how such a body works, as well as a thorough understanding of the challenges and exciting possibilities ahead.

I am volunteering my time and all my skills including my poetic ones and don’t expect any payment for work undertaken on behalf of the Poetry Society.

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