tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26654079.post8126651014644914578..comments2023-05-21T14:46:54.138+01:00Comments on FictionBitch: Manchester Literature Festival discussion on prize cultureElizabeth Baineshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17193751871434773972noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26654079.post-64746778153903385842011-10-20T14:30:28.870+01:002011-10-20T14:30:28.870+01:00Wow, it sounds like a great discussion. Thanks for...Wow, it sounds like a great discussion. Thanks for taking the time to share it, ELizabeth.<br /><br />I love a bit of honesty on a panel. No better woman than Vona G: 'the king maker ... prizes youth and promise over achievement. This last she saw as a big problem: too many judges want to be in at the beginning of writers' careers; they want to feel that they have found someone.' So true - I have seen evidence of this and it can stink.<br /><br />MJ has a point too re. the difficulties in being truly honest about the literary world when you are IN it.<br /><br />John McAuliffe championing the Irish. Neither of the books he mentioned garnered consistently 'wow' reviews and, it seems to me, books get on shortlists because of wow reviews.Group 8https://www.blogger.com/profile/07924947352624027079noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26654079.post-45482217467741438112011-10-20T10:55:54.466+01:002011-10-20T10:55:54.466+01:00Kathleen: Very sorry I had to miss your event yest...Kathleen: Very sorry I had to miss your event yesterday - would have loved to be there and I hope it went well.Elizabeth Baineshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17193751871434773972noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26654079.post-34210924510764335142011-10-20T10:28:42.965+01:002011-10-20T10:28:42.965+01:00Dan, thanks so much for pointing out the error: it...Dan, thanks so much for pointing out the error: it wasn't John's error but mine.<br /><br />The poetry evening sounds wonderful. So very interested to hear that the Poetry Society etc figured so little in the general conciousness there.Elizabeth Baineshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17193751871434773972noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26654079.post-65805353796212777362011-10-20T09:39:32.611+01:002011-10-20T09:39:32.611+01:00Wonderful, thank you. Just one correction, as I wo...Wonderful, thank you. Just one correction, as I work in a very closely associated Faculty and spent a month with the news staring at me from my homepage I can assure everyone that Patrick McGuinnes did make this year's longlist. <br /><br />Particularly interested in reading the wonderful account of poetry prizes. The event we held in Oxford on Tuesday was mainly full of poets. Incredibly vibrant, exciting poets. True many were young, but there was no death, little suffering, and what politics was on offer would scare the horses more than a Derek Jarman reimagining of Equus. Instead there was wonderfully informal sexuality (unhet-up accounts of casual first kisses), delicious Mieville-esque slightly-ideological magic realism, the internet, and that most shocking of subjects for poetry - happiness. There was much discussion afterwards (we talked over beer from 9 onwards with the staff of Blackwell's too busy chatting about literature to notice the Booker announcement had passed) about the state of poetry. It was most enlightening. We were a funny little group. Everyone bar me was totally enmeshed in the poetry & literary world, from the organiser of Oxford Hammer & Tongue to an Orange judge who's just started her own night of full-on poetry in London and a pukka prizewinner (£3000. For poetry!). The Poetry Society came up very briefly. Not everyone had heard of it. Those who had were vaguely aware that it was "a shambles". No one thought it, or any of the prizes under its auspices, had any particular relevance to anything exciting that was happening in poetry, and the conversation moved swiftly on to incredibly fertile and creative and genuinely exciting ground as we talked about how poetry could engage audiences, how to overcome the superficiality of and staleness of much spoken poetry, why there were so few women at the pinnacle of performance poetry, and plans for getting people from different disciplines workshopping their work together to keep each discipline fresh and avoid introspection.<br /><br />I have a feeling it's the same in all literary areas. It's rather like our planet. There's 99.9% seething molten shifting core, but the bit you can actually see just sits there bar the occasional tectonic wobble. But the prizes that people see all have to do with the latter. Whcih further reinforces things. It's a very hard feedback loop for readers and writers to get out of.<br /><br />Interesting to talk of the Booker's heyday. I was going to say it's a shame there was no mention of the Turner Prize, which still has the power to stir the pot. But I'm not sure it does. Damien Hirst, Steve McQueen, Rachel Whiteread, Tracey Emin, Sarah Lucas, Grayson Perry. They all belong to pretty much the same time period as the Booker heyday. And one could say the same about music. Which makes me wonder about a much larger cultural shift towards the grassroots, towards live performance and direct engagement with audiences. A shift that prizes are now way out of sync withDan Hollowayhttp://danholloway.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26654079.post-2658636753849541572011-10-20T07:02:43.692+01:002011-10-20T07:02:43.692+01:00Thanks for this summary - wasn't able to make ...Thanks for this summary - wasn't able to make the event. Sounds as if it was a fascinating discussion.Kathleen Joneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07645566938871914385noreply@blogger.com