I used to work in a north west sixth form college. One year six of my students were in the Young Foyles top 100. They were invited to the London celebration. I had to explain though they would have loved to go they couldnt afford either a train fare, the hire of a mini bus or an overnight stay - ideas all suggested by the Poetry Society. On understanding this The Poetry Society did something truly powerful for the students. They came up north, printed a separate booklet with the six students poems in and ran their own celebration for them! It made such a difference to the way they felt about their writing and its importance
Thank you so much Clare for this brilliant article and for bringing awareness to it. The struggle is very, very real. It is exhausting and demeaning and often feels like an uphill battle. Sometimes it seems as though every single door is closed and writing is the very last thing I am inspired to do. The competition is rife and those who do need the step up or the help are often overlooked or slip through the cracks. Being unemployed and from a low income background and area the choices are severely limited every which way and it’s very easy to give up on the dream and just fall back into old patterns. Breaking out of what is expected of us or breaking through the glass ceiling at times feels nigh on impossible. Thank you from the bottom of my heart to both yourself and Kim who always, always provide the option of bursary places or reduced ticket prices. So often for people from low income backgrounds choices have to be made, sacrifices made and opportunities missed out on. It feels very much like standing outside of a window and watching the writing world pass by on the other side
Yes so very many times over to this. Thank you so much. As a very working class girl then woman from the East End of London, reading and writing poetry in total isolation from a very early age, I had no networks nor any appreciable knowledge of how anything worked in the poetry world, and thought people like myself were never published poets, until the wonder that was Jo Bell's 52 put me in touch with so much and so many, and really changed my life. Though I have to add that it was only this week (!!) that I found out that there are systems in place for submitting pamphlets/collections for possible review.
Brilliant article. The bit about not knowing where the door is rang so true for me. At 18 I didn’t have a clue how to be a writer but I’d have bridled if you’d told me I was disadvantaged. The truth was that I had absolutely no idea what privilege other people from different classes had until I was much older. As a result I didn’t get my writing career started until I was 40. This stuff needs to be shouted about!
Thank you, thank you, thank you, Clare, for writing this.
From a sad human who is too busy, anxious and exhausted with surviving to write, who sees only wealthy, self assured and self confident writers locally and is too intimidated to get involved in the 'club'. Who is even intimidated by the photographs of emerging writers on schemes. Who the bread roll thing happened to too.
Thank you for this. I too am from a community where we regarded nurses and teachers as middle class. What I find frustrating is that I am certain this is a discussion that will still be had next year with similar statistics. It is not only a form of injustice but in a sense all readers and consumers of art are being mugged - to keep the cannon of work so narrow lacks a comprehension of what art is for. I look forward to reading the mentioned writers in the future.
Thanks so much for posting this Clare I too m ight signpost folks in this direction - I was told not to be so obviously chip on the shoulder as it was almost embarrassing!!!! Also told at school the foundry workers daughters dont go to university! Well stuff that I thought all those years ago and am still stuffing that ...but cannot deny that I wish I was Stephen Fry (or someone of similar ilk) sometimes who seems to have no difficulty in getting almost anything published!!!
Brilliant piece, Clare! Last time I raised the issue of working class/under-represented writers I was shouted down with comments like... 'there's not a class issue any more', 'what is working class anyway' blah blah. The people shouting loudest were, erm, probably working class themselves, but that's another issue! So thanks for this, I might direct a few people here...
This resonates with me. Working class all my life. Brought up on a council state. Worked as an office boy, a shop assistant, a docker and a teacher. I have always been a writer, always felt like an imposter. Published once, so that makes me an author, but still an outsider.
I keep coming back to this. It reminds me of a conversation I had in 1978. I was very involved in socialist politics then. I still am, only less so. I was working on the docks in those days and was with a young welder and a friend of ours who had ambitions to be an artist. We were trying to persuade him to join the socialist cause and he replied that he sympathised with us but he had to follow his vocation and concentrate on his art. Chris replied that he did not have that luxury. As a family man he had to earn a living. But he wanted a world where such aspirations were open to all. It might be too late for him (What an admission. He was only 25!) but he wanted his children to have that choice. There are many barriers to achievement. But we should be tearing down the barriers to hope.
I used to work in a north west sixth form college. One year six of my students were in the Young Foyles top 100. They were invited to the London celebration. I had to explain though they would have loved to go they couldnt afford either a train fare, the hire of a mini bus or an overnight stay - ideas all suggested by the Poetry Society. On understanding this The Poetry Society did something truly powerful for the students. They came up north, printed a separate booklet with the six students poems in and ran their own celebration for them! It made such a difference to the way they felt about their writing and its importance
Thank you so much Clare for this brilliant article and for bringing awareness to it. The struggle is very, very real. It is exhausting and demeaning and often feels like an uphill battle. Sometimes it seems as though every single door is closed and writing is the very last thing I am inspired to do. The competition is rife and those who do need the step up or the help are often overlooked or slip through the cracks. Being unemployed and from a low income background and area the choices are severely limited every which way and it’s very easy to give up on the dream and just fall back into old patterns. Breaking out of what is expected of us or breaking through the glass ceiling at times feels nigh on impossible. Thank you from the bottom of my heart to both yourself and Kim who always, always provide the option of bursary places or reduced ticket prices. So often for people from low income backgrounds choices have to be made, sacrifices made and opportunities missed out on. It feels very much like standing outside of a window and watching the writing world pass by on the other side
Yes so very many times over to this. Thank you so much. As a very working class girl then woman from the East End of London, reading and writing poetry in total isolation from a very early age, I had no networks nor any appreciable knowledge of how anything worked in the poetry world, and thought people like myself were never published poets, until the wonder that was Jo Bell's 52 put me in touch with so much and so many, and really changed my life. Though I have to add that it was only this week (!!) that I found out that there are systems in place for submitting pamphlets/collections for possible review.
Brilliant article. The bit about not knowing where the door is rang so true for me. At 18 I didn’t have a clue how to be a writer but I’d have bridled if you’d told me I was disadvantaged. The truth was that I had absolutely no idea what privilege other people from different classes had until I was much older. As a result I didn’t get my writing career started until I was 40. This stuff needs to be shouted about!
Thank you, thank you, thank you, Clare, for writing this.
From a sad human who is too busy, anxious and exhausted with surviving to write, who sees only wealthy, self assured and self confident writers locally and is too intimidated to get involved in the 'club'. Who is even intimidated by the photographs of emerging writers on schemes. Who the bread roll thing happened to too.
Thank you for this. I too am from a community where we regarded nurses and teachers as middle class. What I find frustrating is that I am certain this is a discussion that will still be had next year with similar statistics. It is not only a form of injustice but in a sense all readers and consumers of art are being mugged - to keep the cannon of work so narrow lacks a comprehension of what art is for. I look forward to reading the mentioned writers in the future.
Thanks so much for posting this Clare I too m ight signpost folks in this direction - I was told not to be so obviously chip on the shoulder as it was almost embarrassing!!!! Also told at school the foundry workers daughters dont go to university! Well stuff that I thought all those years ago and am still stuffing that ...but cannot deny that I wish I was Stephen Fry (or someone of similar ilk) sometimes who seems to have no difficulty in getting almost anything published!!!
Fry can get any old tosh published but at least he writes it himself. Ghost written celebrity tosh is even worse.
Brilliant piece, Clare! Last time I raised the issue of working class/under-represented writers I was shouted down with comments like... 'there's not a class issue any more', 'what is working class anyway' blah blah. The people shouting loudest were, erm, probably working class themselves, but that's another issue! So thanks for this, I might direct a few people here...
This resonates with me. Working class all my life. Brought up on a council state. Worked as an office boy, a shop assistant, a docker and a teacher. I have always been a writer, always felt like an imposter. Published once, so that makes me an author, but still an outsider.
I keep coming back to this. It reminds me of a conversation I had in 1978. I was very involved in socialist politics then. I still am, only less so. I was working on the docks in those days and was with a young welder and a friend of ours who had ambitions to be an artist. We were trying to persuade him to join the socialist cause and he replied that he sympathised with us but he had to follow his vocation and concentrate on his art. Chris replied that he did not have that luxury. As a family man he had to earn a living. But he wanted a world where such aspirations were open to all. It might be too late for him (What an admission. He was only 25!) but he wanted his children to have that choice. There are many barriers to achievement. But we should be tearing down the barriers to hope.