Race and Reviewing in the UK: The Ledbury Poetry Critics

Although publishing by UK poets of colour has risen sharply during the previous decade, poetry reviewing has largely lagged behind. This year-long project will build on Parmar's research on race and UK poetry, as well as on LPC's impact on diversity in reviewing, by extending both its qualitative and quantitative measures and aims to a much wider group of poetry critics, commissioning editors, arts and policy organisations and early career academics and emerging poetry critics Dr Alycia Pirmohamed and Dr Dave Coates (in post 9 months of the project). A programme of workshops, public events with panel discussions, Editor-in-Residencies and one-on-one mentoring will feed into a Critics Residency at Ledbury Poetry Festival in July 2021. Up to 30 critics selected by application in January 2021 will take part in this programme, alongside partners and editors from high-profile organisations such as the London Review of Books, The Poetry Review (Poetry Society), Times Literary Supplement, Scottish BAME writers network, Forward Arts Foundation, Spread the Word, Literature Wales and smaller publishing platforms such as Ambit, Poetry London, Poetry Wales, Wasafiri among others.

In 2005 less than 1% of UK poets published by major presses were Black or Asian; by 2017 this increased to 16% (Freed Verse report, Spread the Word), as part of a wider cultural shift towards inclusion in literature led by schemes like The Complete Works (2007-2017), a mentorship programme for Black and Asian poets. In 2017, Parmar co-founded the Ledbury Poetry Critics mentorship scheme for BAME poetry reviewers with T.S. Eliot Prize winning poet and critic Sarah Howe. Ledbury's founding report found that only 3% of poetry reviewers in UK newspapers and magazines were non-white. Since its inception, LPC has mentored twelve poetry critics in the UK, four in the US and is currently developing an Irish critics programme with local partners. Ledbury's 2020 report on diversity in poetry culture, 'The State of Poetry and Poetry Criticism', shows that the LPC programme tripled poetry reviews by critics of colour--now nearly 10% of poetry reviews published in the UK are by non-white critics. But more work needs to be done to make poetry criticism and reviewing inclusive and diverse.

The Critics Residency will take place over five days and will include: critic-led seminars on the language of reviewing and race; workshops focused on developing practical review writing skills; further opportunities for individual feedback on reviews; guidance on how to pitch to editors; opportunities to build a profile through networking with commissioning editors; reviewing tasks and individual writing time. Paid editor residencies throughout the year will partner critics with editors to develop editorial skills by jointly-producing one issue of a magazine or journal. A route to career progression from critic to commissioning editor is a crucial part of EDI work in poetry criticism. Editors must also be drawn from diverse cultural backgrounds. And thus far six Ledbury Critics have become editors at The Times, Oxford Poetry, the Poetry School, Culturised and Ambit.

In terms of the quantitative aspects of the project, measuring inclusion through data is essential for gauging progress and areas for improvement in UK poetry reviewing. This project will use its existing research methods to develop an industry-wide standard method of self-reporting. An accessible and protected database will be made available to readers, critics and researchers of UK poetry culture by September 2021. These expanded quantitative measures will be shared and refined in consultation with editors, arts policy organisations, statisticians and critics, as will a method of annual reporting and peer auditing, to ensure accuracy and reliability of data. This database, which already stores anonymous data from 2009-2019, will be maintained in perpetuity by Liverpool's Centre for New and International Writing.