From Professor PETER DICKINSON
I am writing to add my support to the large number of protests that I am sure you will receive following the announcement of the withdrawal of funding for the small poetry presses – cuts so severe that they will probably have to close.
Publishers like Enitharmon Press and Arc Publications are part of the central tradition of British poetry with a distinguished list of authors in a coherent publishing programme which has been sustained over many years to a high standard.
It is simply incomprehensible that the relatively small sums involved should be cut when a grant of a million pounds is going to Poetry for the Olympics.
Your priorities must be wrong.
I urge you very strongly to reconsider this ill-advised decision.