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Contemporary British Poetry and the Long 1980s:

Abstract

The Covid-19 crisis forced publishers and poets to develop new ways to promote their books despite lockdowns and travel restrictions. The emergence of alternative ways to promote, read and write poetry impacted the contemporary British poetry scene. Social media and online events enabled poets to keep on networking and to break their isolation. Countless literary festivals moved online, providing new venues for poets and audiences alike. Many praised their accessibility, especially people with mobility issues, financial difficulties, or living far away from poetry scene hotspots.

With the rise of online events, a heated debate about accessibility has emerged. Some regret that events have now returned to in-person only, with disabled poets championing a more inclusive poetry world. The pandemic has changed the habits of the contemporary British poetry scene. This paper will examine how the Covid-19 crisis and new technologies have brought more diversity and broadened the readership of contemporary British poetry, with marginalised voices finally being heard.

Texte intégral

Introduction

1The Covid-19 crisis has brought its share of negative consequences in the contemporary British poetry world. The lack of opportunities to promote and sell books at poetry readings, literary festivals, and other face-to-face events made it challenging for publishers and poets to share their work with the wider world. Yet the pandemic also forced the actors of the contemporary British poetry scene to find alternative ways to read and write poetry, to listen to other people’s writing, and to sell their books. The development of new technologies has made the contemporary British poetry scene more accessible, revolutionising the composition, transmission and reception of poetry. Though a plurality of voices had undeniably emerged since the 1980s, the pandemic highlighted the limits of the poetry community. Several poets and critics who have been active on the poetry scene since the 1980s like Michael Hulse, David Kennedy and David Morley (1993), Sean O’Brien (1998) and Fiona Sampson (2012) have noticed a change, such as a greater number of Black, Asian, women and regional poets being published. But these examples only represent a fraction of the marginalised voices that make up Britain: LGBTQ+ and disabled poets seem not to have had the same breakthrough in the 1980s and 1990s. Additionally, these critics’ studies of accessibility in the poetry world focus on the poets’ writing and background, not on the practical dimensions of the poetry world (access to opportunities such as mentorships, writing courses and festivals, or the marketing and selling of poetry). Finally, for obvious reasons, the 1990s analyses of the contemporary British poetry scene do not take into account the impact of social media on accessibility and the reception and promotion of poetry. Nevertheless, the changes mentioned by Hulse, Kennedy, Morley, O’Brien and Sampson were too slow and did not embrace the full variety of marginalised voices. Due to age, chronic illness or disability, their socio-economic background or the place they lived in, many poets and audiences remained excluded from the poetry scene before the Covid-19 pandemic, and this situation questioned the idea of an increased openness. Disabled poets and poets living with chronic illness are now championing a more inclusive poetry world. Equally, poetry books addressing the themes of the body in general and the ill body in particular have become more popular. This article will examine all these issues and changes. It will focus on the difficulties faced by “page poetry” as opposed to performance or spoken word poetry, and will sometimes draw on its author’s experience as a poet and creative writing tutor to support some arguments with concrete examples.

Alternative ways to read and to listen to poetry

2Several academic papers have explored how the Covid-19 crisis has expanded the readership of poetry, encouraged people who had never done so to write poetry, and how any of these activities improved their mental health. Marco Giovanelli (2023) invented the concept of “covid fiction,” in other words, writing inspired by the pandemic, and discusses in detail this new genre. Rachid Acim (2021) pointed out that lockdown poetry flourished, before examining its therapeutic effects. The impact of poetry on people’s mental health during the Covid-19 crisis is at the heart of these studies, and although this approach provides valuable insight into the changing attitudes towards poetry brought by the pandemic, this article will not focus on this topic. As Caleshua, Waterman and Kemp remind us, the connection between poetry and wellbeing had already been demonstrated before Covid, hence the creation of a publication like The Journal of Poetry Therapy (Caleshua, Waterman and Kemp 2).

3Britain’s lockdowns respectively took place from March 2020 to May 2020, November 2020 to December 2020, and January 2021 to February 2021. A variety of initiatives emerged to circulate poems during lockdowns, such as podcasts, poetry anthologies produced in support of charities or organisations like the NHS, poetry hashtags on social media, or people posting videos of themselves reading their favourite poems.

4Interestingly, some websites and archives began to gather lockdown poetry from all over the world. With the support of the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council, Caleshua, Waterman and Kemp coordinated the “Poets Respond to COVID-19” project between June 2020 and May 2021. One of their activities was to run the website poetryandcovid.com (now poetryandcovidarchive.com) to feature English-language poems about the pandemic, and to analyse with data the value of reading and writing poetry on people’s mental health (Caleshua, Waterman and Kemp 2). Similarly, the Manchester Poetry Library launched the WRITE Where We Are Now (WWWAN) project in collaboration with ex-Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy and the Manchester Writing School. This archive was created following a public appeal to encourage people to write about their experiences of the Covid-19 crisis. According to the Manchester Poetry Library website, the aim of this project is for these poems to be “safeguarded for future generations, recognising their value as historical records of this moment in time.” The WWWAN project recognises the historical significance of the Covid-19 pandemic, an idea reinforced by the revolution of new technologies generated by this event. As J.T. Welsch explains:

If poetry after 2008 is distinguished by increased political engagement, efforts around accessibility and inclusivity, and the visibility of performance-based or internet-oriented poetry, there is a practical sense in which all of these developments were made possible by technologies that support a more connected and outward-looking conception of poetry culture. (Welsh 6)

5As argued earlier, the assumption that the pre-pandemic contemporary British poetry scene was effectively accessible and inclusive needs to be nuanced. With the Covid-19 crisis, the wide range of possibilities offered by new technologies was finally embraced by cultural producers and organisations, literary development agencies, and audiences. Alternative ways to read and listen to poetry finally emerged. Twitter has been the most popular social media platform with poets for years, but the successive lockdowns turned it into an ideal tool to connect with the poetry community. As Giovanelli explains, during the pandemic poetry became particularly popular on social media because its short format makes it “easy to share, and offers an immediate outlet for personal response” (Giovanelli 212). This idea of immediate interaction is essential to understand the success of poetry in times of isolation. Many users posted inspirational poems to lift other people’s spirits, alleviate their solitude, or share recommendations. Amélie Doche gives the example of a tweet shared by a reader of Poetry Birmingham Literary Journal mentioning having purchased a copy of the magazine:

By tagging the usernames of the PBLJ editors, the reader directly addresses them. However, the openness of social media platforms implies that the scope of the interaction is never limited to the featured participants. Effectively, this tweet engages followers of the author of the tweet and – since the content has been retweeted – followers of PBLJ. (Doche 4)

6This type of interaction on social media creates beneficial emulation to promote the literary journal or poetry book in question. As we will examine later in this article, the role of social media in promoting the work of poets was reinforced by the pandemic.

7More decisively, the Covid-19 crisis has brought video communication companies like Zoom and Microsoft Teams to the forefront. Respectively created in 2011 and 2016, Zoom and Microsoft Teams became widely used during the pandemic. From the first lockdown, poetry organisations and independent poets organised regular online events. Poet Serge Neptune hosted the Neptune's Glitter House for WayWard Poets series throughout 2020, poet and Oxford Brookes lecturer Jennifer Wong created the “What We Read Now” project in July 2020, and in early 2021 the cultural organisation Live Canon began hosting poetry readings featuring four poets on Zoom every Friday lunchtime. Some of these initiatives survived the post-pandemic world, others did not, but they all demonstrate a will to showcase the work of a wide range of voices, from emerging to established poets.

8As poets and audiences became more accustomed to Zoom, new initiatives emerged. Poet Alice Hiller, who acts as the Covent Garden Stanza representative, created a group of poets called “Voicing our Silences”. This collective – made up of poets writing about difficult themes such as child sexual abuse or violence towards women – posted free videos on their website and on their YouTube channel over the months of lockdown to create a sense of community and share thoughts about the writing process. Their videos combined poetry readings, discussions between two poets, and writing exercises to generate new work.

9After having postponed their events for months, several literary festivals decided to move online, a decision that this article will examine in detail later. The Poetry in Aldeburgh festival was postponed to November 2020 and StAnza (Scotland’s International Poetry Festival) to March 2021. The 2020 edition of the Winchester Poetry Festival was cancelled, but the 2021 edition was a hybrid festival that took place between June and September, with a three-day live festival in October. These literary festivals combined readings and discussions with online creative writing workshops, another addition to the list of new habits brought by the pandemic.

Alternative ways to write poetry

10Before the pandemic, the preferred delivery mode for poetry courses was face-to-face. The Poetry School was one of the few organisations to offer online creative writing courses, but these courses did not involve Zoom or Microsoft Teams, only a forum where participants could interact with each other. The successive lockdowns forced organisations delivering face-to-face poetry courses to expand their digital offer. Online creative writing workshops became increasingly popular during the second part of 2020, when users began to be more accustomed to Zoom and Microsoft Teams and when festival organisers, cultural organisations and private companies decided to embrace the changes brought by new technologies. Most organisations needed time to adapt to this crisis in terms of budget and logistics: as many tutors were not familiar with Zoom or Google Classroom, teacher training had to be provided during the summer of 2020 in order to make the transition from face-to-face to online teaching as smooth as possible. This way the City Lit Institute, an adult education college based in London, provided a few online creative writing courses during the first lockdown, but the great majority of them were launched in September 2020. The Arvon Foundation, an organisation offering writing retreats in Devon, Shropshire and West Yorkshire, had to adapt to these drastic changes by offering online retreats, evening courses and masterclasses. These options are still available today.

11Additionally, the free alternative to online creative writing courses was writers’ groups. Lockdowns and travel restrictions prevented writers from meeting face-to-face to workshop their work, so many writers’ groups chose to move online to continue giving feedback to each other. Several Poetry Society Stanzas – more than a hundred writers’ groups run by Poetry Society members all over Britain and abroad – did so, and their feedback sessions took place either live via Zoom, or via email with written comments.

New ways to promote poetry

12According to Chris Hamilton-Emery, director of Salt (a publishing house that also includes poetry collections on its list), less than 20% of new poetry books are sold in bookshops – the rest is directly purchased from the poet or the publishing house (Hamilton-Emery 9). The promotion and sales of poetry books were strongly impacted by the pandemic. Without regular venues and festivals to perform their poems and talk about their books, poets and publishers could not promote them the traditional way. This is where social media played an even bigger part in selling poetry books. As the performance and page poet Sophia Blackwell explains in a chapter dedicated to marketing a poetry book, “two themes that come out in today’s digital world are community and interaction. The goal is to build a community of supporters for you and your book and to assemble fans and followers in one place (such as a well-curated email list, your website or a social media page)” (Blackwell 154). This “community of supporters” became essential to sell poetry books during the pandemic, when bookshops and venues were closed. The main challenge of selling poetry books is that it relies more on self-promotion than other literary genres within the book trade. Hamilton-Emery argues that “The market for selling poetry is, in relation to the total book trade, an extremely small one, and it is complex, fragmented, well-managed and highly competitive. Because of this, it is notoriously difficult to coordinate a sustainable economic model for contemporary writing” (Hamilton-Emery 5). He adds that it is almost impossible to earn a living as a poet by just selling one’s poetry, but that one can have a more regular source of income by running workshops, teaching Creative Writing or English, charging fees to read at poetry festivals and other events, getting grants, taking on residencies or working as a reviewer – in other words, by working as a freelancer, a cultural producer, in academia, or in the media. Juggling between all these activities is a way for the contemporary poet to promote their work to wider audiences.

13As Helena Nelson, publisher of the poetry press HappenStance, explains: “Publishers have to think about sales. Sales happen if the poet has a readership. Sales happen if the book has something about it that will catch attention. Sales happen if the poet is already well-known in another field. Sales happen if the poet thrives on self-promotion” (Nelson 78). The vast majority of small publishing presses do not have a marketing department, or invest little time and money in a marketing strategy, so the poet will have to do most of the work to secure readings at festivals and venues or sell their book. Welsch dedicates a whole chapter to what he calls “the poet entrepreneur.” He comes to the conclusion that the contemporary poetry world is adopting the codes of entrepreneurship and that poets are now expected to behave like entrepreneurs (Welsch 183-184). They need to establish marketing strategies in order to sell their books. Digital communities are not all about creativity and nurturing each other’s talent: their aim is also to promote one’s book and to develop a professional network that will be useful to sell this book, secure poetry readings and workshops at festivals, take part in radio programmes, get potential future jobs as creative writing lecturers in academia, and other opportunities. Although some poetic communities that appeared during the pandemic work together to produce new work and support each other like the Voicing Our Silences group, others are more professional-oriented. Social media has enabled people to “meet” and create together, but it also enabled a community of individual voices to emerge.

14There is no denying that the pandemic has reinforced the need for an entrepreneurial attitude towards poetry. As Doche reminds us, “To help create awareness for their newly released books, some authors have created new practices” (Doche 4). During the Covid-19 crisis, some poets implemented a more active social media strategy and marketing campaign to gain exposure: they posted more frequently on their social media platforms, secured more (online) poetry readings than usual, or ran their own poetry events to promote their and other people’s books published during the pandemic. Doche identifies a phenomenon that she calls “unboxing pictures”, in other words, poets posting photos of their poetry books on the day they receive them from their publishers. She argues that with the pandemic, “authors have also come to fetishize the book-bound nature of the reading object,” adding that “emphasising the materiality of the book has functioned as a means to engage and sustain dialogue between literary production (writers), literary dissemination (editors and publishers), and literary reception (readers)” (Doche 4). In a trouble time when everything suddenly became virtual and remote, it is not surprising that people emphasised the materiality of the book. I would add that unboxing pictures were also an effective marketing strategy. By posting unboxing pictures, poets did not only share with online viewers their joy at being published to create an emotional bond – they built up tension and expectations around their book.

15Many poets had no choice but to publish their poetry pamphlets and collections during lockdowns. Online launches became the only option to launch a book, something that seems completely natural today, but was not the case before 2020. Poet Gregory Leadbetter, who launched his collection Maskwork (published by Nine Arches Press) in October 2020, a few days before Britain’s second lockdown, confessed to me:

Initially I was worried about launching a book without any in-person events […], but when I accepted that this was what we were dealing with and how it had to be, I tried to embrace it, and the peculiar benefits (on one level) that an online launch brings: I think Nine Arches [his publisher] told me that at its peak it had about 160 people watching live […], which felt quite extraordinary. (Personal email correspondence, 27th May 2023)

16One hundred and sixty people attending a book launch is indeed a very impressive number, and a feat that would have been difficult to replicate with an in-person book launch, regardless of the popularity of the poet. Doche reaches the same conclusion and gives the example of poet Jonathan Davidson. The online launch of his poetry collection A Commonplace in August 2020 was viewed by six hundred and sixty-three people on YouTube. As Doche explains, “This figure seems particularly significant considering that Davidson’s publishers, The Poetry Business, counts one hundred and fifty-nine YouTube subscribers and that poetry book launches are often smaller events which do not tend to attract big crowds” (Doche 4).

17Online launches brought together viewers from all over the world, people with health or mobility issues, and audiences who would have been too busy to travel to the venue because of daily contingencies (being too exhausted after work, parents looking after their children in the evening, etc.). Yet there was also a downside to launching a poetry book during the pandemic, as Leadbetter reminds us:

So the event itself felt - and was - really positive. It was only later - as 2021 kicked in, and I started to see that I would have very, very few opportunities to read from the book live, in person, and that I was not featuring in any festival programming anywhere, really […] that it hit me how terrible it was to have a book out at that time. (Personal email correspondence, 27th May 2023)

18Online launches cannot replace connecting with a live audience in a shared space. Poetry books sales rely largely on poets performing their work at festivals and at poetry readings held in bookshops, pubs, and other special venues. Nonetheless, online launches undoubtedly helped poets and publishers reach a wider audience. Five days after the online launch of my poetry pamphlet Whalers, Witches and Gauchos during the third French lockdown (April 2021), my publisher Nine Pens sent copies of the book to Germany, the Czech Republic, the US and Singapore, countries where I do not have any friends, family or personal contacts. Consequently, the online launch of my poetry book played a big part in reaching an international readership.

19Another way to attract readers was to share posts related to one’s poetry book on social media: posts about a concept idea, a recurrent theme, or the poet’s USP (Unique Selling Point). As my poetry pamphlet Whalers, Witches and Gauchos was published during lockdown and I had no access to poetry venues and festivals, I had to implement an online strategy that would compensate for all these negative points. Months before the book was published, I created a list of posts for Instagram, Facebook and Twitter on a weekly basis, both before and after the pamphlet was out. Since my book told the story of my Basque ancestors, I posted personal stories about my family on social media. I also took a series of photos of me holding my poetry pamphlet in my Basque hometown because the half-timbered facades of the traditional buildings were reminiscent of the cover design of my book. Additionally, the day before my online launch, I posted photos of the Basque buffet that my readers would have had access to if my launch had taken place in “real life,” and viewers responded enthusiastically to this post and to the one previously mentioned. At first glance, these examples may not seem related to poetry, yet they all rely on the concept used by marketing teams to sell any product: storytelling. Poets who have a unique selling point or can create a compelling story around their book are more likely to get noticed. Yet even poets who write poetry which is difficult to categorise in terms of style or themes can use strategies to market their book (by posting unboxing photos, videos of themselves reading poems or discussing their influences, photos of their poems, etc.) that will help sell it. Consequently, these initiatives do not narrow the range of poetries being produced and read.

Debates around accessibility

20With the development of online opportunities, the return to a so-called “normal life” and a pre-pandemic poetry scene raised the issue of accessibility. The question at the core of this debate is whether or not the contemporary British poetry scene was inclusive enough before Covid, and if it reflected a wide range of voices, and the answer is no.

21First, the contemporary British poetry scene is primarily London-centric, though some places like Manchester, Edinburgh or the West Midlands can be regarded as dynamic alternatives to the capital. But this reality excludes countless poets living outside major cities, especially the ones living in rural areas. Welsch questions the claim that the poetry world is accessible to all thanks to new technologies, highlighting that cities still play a big role in creating networks (Welsch 122). According to him, the poetry scene heavily relies on the figure of the city as a traditional centre of culture, and city-based poets and publishers gain more visibility, have access to better opportunities such as poetry schools and libraries, and have disproportionately higher chances to be shortlisted for major literary prizes than their regional counterparts (Welsch 125-126).

22Additionally, the economic dimension of participating in poetry events and workshops is often underestimated. Not everyone can afford to travel to attend poetry readings or festivals, or to pay for in-person courses and mentorships. As a poet who works in publishing, Blackwell acknowledges that the publishing industry is mainly made up of white, middle-class male publishers, and that changes to make the publishing industry and the creative industries in general more inclusive are slow (Blackwell 7). She particularly insists on the class dimension, highlighting that working-class audiences are less likely to read poetry or to attend poetry events for economic reasons:

Not everyone feels completely at home in a bookshop or arts venue, and there are few ‘gateway’ spaces (such as libraries) that have not been pretty much destroyed by austerity. We find ourselves at a crossroads where everyone is trying to do more with less. The casualties of funding cuts are often the entry-level opportunities that would have got more working-class young people into the arts – community theatre groups, village halls and small local festivals that would give them the chance to meet and work with poets and performers. (Blackwell 184)

23Finally, people who cannot undertake trips for health reasons were particularly excluded from the poetry world before the pandemic. Poets Hannah Hodgson and Polly Atkin have shared on social media the difficulties encountered by disabled poets or poets living with a chronic illness to access the opportunities the poetry scene can offer. Their Twitter threads demonstrate there is still much to be done to make poetry venues accessible for all. When some festivals decided to return to in-person only in 2022, many criticised this decision. Atkin has written extensively on the subject on her website (pollyatkin.com). In her article “Will we still beg when this is over? On literary events, access, and the pandemic,” she shares her experience of the poetry scene during the pandemic:

Many disabled people found that access to the arts and education opened up for them when nondisabled people needed it. For those who couldn’t attend events in-person before the pandemic, it was bittersweet to suddenly be told access was possible where it had previously been refused.
Many predicted how access would be denied again as soon as nondisabled people no longer demanded it. […]
There are days when I feel there can be no place for disabled creatives in an art world so attached to presenteeism that it will risk the bodies and minds of those who constitute it. What I get back a lot from event organisers is that it’s too hard and/or too expensive to offer remote access. This doesn’t have to be the case. (Atkin 2022)

24The argument that it is too expensive to offer remote access is more than questionable. Doche has worked in collaboration with the literature development agency Writing West Midlands, which organises the Birmingham Literature Festival, among other initiatives. Their testimony proves that this is not the case:

The use of digital platforms has enabled W[riting] W[est] M[idlands] to reduce its expenditures. This cut has had two positive outcomes: (i) WWM was able to remove many barriers to engagement – including high ticket cost and limited number of bursaries – and (ii) used the time they would spend negotiating venues to deepen their work with readers, writers, and audiences. Throughout the pandemic, WWM has increased the number of bursaries offered for paid events. (Doche 2)

25Therefore, the arguments used by the festival organisers Atkin contacted reveal a lack of efforts rather than a real issue. In this same article, Atkin makes a list of suggestions for event organisers to ease the transition from an in-person to a hybrid format. She suggests providing captions or Sign Language interpreters for online events, as well as audio-recording events to later post them in an archive or as a podcast. What is at stake here is to allow all the actors of the British poetry scene (authors, readers and audiences) to participate in poetry events across the UK. As Doche recalls: “The 2020 online edition of the Birmingham Literature Festival […] reached an audience of nearly 5,000 people in the UK, USA, India, South Africa and beyond, making the festival the most accessible it has ever been” (Doche 2), so organisers have everything to gain from maintaining online events.

26Hosting only in-person events is a way of negating the needs of the vast majority of poets and poetry audiences who cannot travel for geographical, health or socio-economic reasons. From my own experience as a creative writing tutor, since I started teaching creative writing online because of the pandemic, I have noticed a significant increase in the number of students living far away from London (in the countryside, Scotland and Wales, and even abroad); the number of students belonging to the age group 65 years-old and over (especially students in their seventies or eighties); and most importantly, an increase in the number of students with chronic illness or disabilities. For all these people, navigating around London to attend a poetry course would have been difficult if not impossible. Writing West Midlands came to the same conclusion:

The audience feedback received by WWM reveals that, despite the organisation’s commitment towards making creative writing workshops and events widely accessible, in-person events could not be attended by some people working unsociable hours, some people with disability or mental health problems, and some people living in areas with few transport facilities […] (Doche 2)

27Many of my students told me they would have never considered being published before the pandemic because their personal situation and/or the lack of opportunities available to them made it inconceivable that the poetry scene would welcome them.

28The national art survey “Culture Restart” (conducted by Writing West Midlands in March 2021) demonstrates that in a post-pandemic world, people want culture to be accessible to all (“64% of the survey’s respondents are either interested or very interested in engaging with culture online even after in-person events resume”) (quoted in Doche 5). The pre-pandemic model is not satisfying anymore for the great majority of the actors of the contemporary British poetry scene. As Blackwell perfectly summarises, “Online and digital events, live-streamed events and events captured in audio and saved and distributed as podcasts have their place in the future world of poetry” (Blackwell 183).

29Last but not least, another aspect of the Covid-19 crisis that has attracted little attention is the influence of the pandemic on the themes addressed by poets in their work (with the exception of Covid fiction, which is not the subject of this paper). Since the pandemic, the body in general and illness in particular have become topics of general interest instead of controversial subjects to be avoided. This global crisis has raised an awareness of health issues and the position of the most vulnerable. A similar phenomenon occurred in the 1980s and 1990s when the AIDS pandemic broke out. Poets like Thom Gunn explored the impact of this disease on themselves or their friends and relatives with brutal honesty. In The Man With Night Sweats (1992), Gunn described how HIV affects the male body. He drew on the long tradition of writing about the body but expanded it to include the body’s perceived weaknesses. Andrew McMillan is a great admirer of Gunn, and his collections in praise of the male body Physical (2015), Playtime (2018) and Pandemonium (2021) mirror Gunn’s concerns about sexuality, the male body and its supposed weaknesses. Yet the great majority of contemporary male poets tend to write less about the body, particularly the ill body. The Covid-19 crisis undoubtedly created a trend in writing more openly about the ill body, the disabled body, the broken body, as well as the female body and sexuality, but these themes tend to be embraced more heartedly by women poets.

30Many poetry books published since 2020 reflect this turn: Hannah Hodgson’s collection 163 Days (Seren, 2022) explores the personal journey of a palliative care patient; Joanna Ingham’s Ovarium (The Emma Press, 2022) tells the author’s experience of ovarian cancer; Betty Doyle’s Girl Parts (Verve, 2022) describes the impact of polycystic ovary symptom on the female body and the fertility issues it causes; Wendy Pratt’s When I Think of My Body as a Horse (The Poetry Business, 2021) also draws on the theme of body identity, fertility issues and baby loss; while Wendy Allen writes erotically charged poems or poems about “taboo” themes such as periods or tampons in her three pamphlets (freebleeding, co-written with Charley Barnes [2024], Plastic Tubed Little Bird [2023] and The Tricolore Textbook [2021]).

31As John McIntyre writes in his article about the poetic response to AIDS, “Apart from these references to literary and historical forebears, it was common for poets to choose between bluntness and deftness, to confront the harsh particulars of the disease and its complications directly, or to skirt the physical toll in favor of the emotional” (McIntyre). The same happened with post-Covid poets. Hannah Hodgson, who was hospitalised multiple times before and after the pandemic, describes her experience with brutal honesty. The first half of her poetry collection is in the form of a diary interweaving her voice as a chronically ill teenager and young adult, and that of her doctors. Even if the focus is not on hospitalisation during the pandemic, this health crisis remains in the background:

Sunday 5th April

Teach me how to pray to my flesh,
worship every breath,
wear myself like a Cathedral again.
                                  
Hannah seems highly distressed and unwilling for
                                  staff members to help her. I have phoned psychology
                                  and asked them to review her this afternoon. It could
                                  be that the gravity of her physical health situation is
                                  hitting home. (Hodgson 28)

32The second half of the book contains poems which explore in depth the physical and psychological suffering that patients with chronic illnesses face. The poem ‘post pandemic britain’ directly addresses the trauma of being medically vulnerable during the Covid-19 crisis:

our country pops       so many balloons       at 6pm
         millions of balloons overfilled   with relief
when the dead           have my face             and not yours

(extract from ‘post pandemic britain’ (sic.), Hodgson 63)

33Hodgson’s work is a poetic testament to how the ill body was treated before, during and after the pandemic. The body in all its complexities is a theme that gradually appeared in the poetry composed at this time. Wendy Allen, who started writing poetry in the second half of 2020, is one of the few contemporary British women poets to write sexually explicit pieces using straightforward language:

                           From the front,
the repeat, the shadows, the stitches
transform my vulva into a perfect
circle as you reach around my waist,
from the side repeat, trace finger on back.
I hear a moan from the centre (my voice)
your cock is between my lips
I am the opposite to hollow now

‘Pelagos’, Plastic Tubed Little Bird (Allen 9)

34American poet Sharon Olds has also published work which describes the female body and desire in explicit ways, yet even if many women poets acknowledge her influence on them, her bold style has had few followers on the other side of the Atlantic apart from Allen. The feminist dimension of Allen’s poetry is undeniable as she purposely writes about themes which are seen as unworthy, as demonstrated by the title of the poem ‘Why do People Take Photographs of Men Surfing and not my Orgasm as it Peaks’. The British poet co-wrote with Charley Barnes a full pamphlet about menstruation because she noticed that this subject made men uncomfortable. They structured the book so that it resembles an ordinary correspondence between two female friends:

When I met my lover at the National
Trust house (I will not give the
precise location) my menstrual cup
was as white as fairy snow when I
pulled it out, as if lubricated by my
lover’s tongue. I am encircled by
the thought that this is the reversal
of too many made up stories, a
bleeding finger replaced by my
beautiful, bloodied vagina.

(Allen and Barnes 9)

35Allen does not intend to shock or disturb with her work: she wants to show that these ordinary things (sex, desire, bodily fluids) should be discussed because they are natural and affect billions of people around the world. Her writing reflects a desire amplified by the pandemic to give a prominent place to women's bodies in contemporary British poetry.

Conclusion

36Despite all the negative consequences of the pandemic, some positive conclusions can be drawn from this crisis. Technologies and the advancement of video communication companies like Zoom have played a huge part in making the contemporary British poetry scene more accessible. They revolutionised the way poetry is read, written, marketed and sold. The Covid-19 crisis forced publishers and poets to develop new ways to promote their books despite lockdowns, travel restrictions, cancelled events and closed venues. Even now that restrictions are lifted, double book launches (both in-person and online) have become the norm. Although in-person launches provide a more direct and intimate experience with audiences, online launches offer the possibility to cast a wider net and reach readers from diverse locations and backgrounds who will order the book online. Many writers’ groups (such as some Poetry Society Stanzas) moved online to continue providing feedback to each other, some of them even curating websites to showcase their members’ work and offer free creative writing prompts. Social media and online events enabled poets to break their isolation, but the pandemic also consolidated the importance of social media for self-promotion, networking, and to read and discover poetry. Online poetry courses are now accessible to anyone regardless of their personal circumstances or where they live. Many literary festivals offer a combination of face-to-face events and online creative writing workshops, poetry readings and talks. This way, The Verve Poetry Festival, which last took place in February 2024 in Birmingham, launched a series of online workshops throughout the year back in 2023. The emergence of alternative ways of promoting, reading and writing poetry during the pandemic has impacted the contemporary British poetry scene in various, and sometimes indirect, ways. More poets feel free to write about the ill body and the female body since the Covid-19 crisis. With the rise of online events, a heated debate about accessibility has emerged which changes the preconception that the contemporary British poetry scene was fully “open” to a wide range of voices. Despite what certain critics argued, by excluding some categories of people (the elderly, people from less privileged socio-economic backgrounds, disabled and chronically ill poets), the pre-pandemic model was not inclusive. The “deregulation” brought by the pandemic has undeniably changed the habits of the poetry community for the better.

Works cited

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Pour citer ce document

Julie Irigaray, «Accessibility in the Poetry World: How the Covid-19 Pandemic Transformed the Contemporary British Poetry Scene», TIES [En ligne], TIES, Contemporary British Poetry and the Long 1980s:, mis à jour le : 18/10/2025, URL : http://revueties.org/document/1430-accessibility-in-the-poetry-world-how-the-covid-19-pandemic-transformed-the-contemporary-british-poetry-scene.

Quelques mots à propos de :  Julie  Irigaray

Julie Irigaray holds a PhD in English Literature from the University of Huddersfield. Her research examines Sylvia Plath’s complex relationship with England and her transnational identity as an American writer with strong European affiliations. She is a co-editor of the academic journal Plath Profiles and co-founder of the Sylvia Plath Society. She was educated at Université Paris Cité, King’s College London, and Trinity College Dublin. In addition to her academic work, she teaches creative writing at City Lit. Her publications include an article on Sylvia Plath and France, a book chapter on the contemporary British writer Max Porter, and the poetry collection Whalers, Witches and Gauchos (Nine Pens, 2021). Her scholarly and creative work—including articles, poems, and translations between English and French—has appeared in more than fifty publications internationally (United States, Canada, Mexico, United Kingdom, Ireland, Italy, Spain, Singapore, and South Korea). Further information is available at www.julieirigaray.com.