News at Eleven: In March of this year, the Arts Council

withdrew funding from the Poetry Book Society. A campaign was mounted and a petition was sent round. I didn't sign it, because it seemed a minor issue compared with the dismantling of the health service. I thought perhaps poetry should be suffering its setbacks quietly. I also thought that poetry needed more funding through schools and libraries and less funding through prizes. I don't know whether this decision was the right one, but since then I've been asking myself what role poetry plays in society, whether it has any right to absorb the taxes of people who might not read it--whether, in fact, poetry is a luxury or a necessity. [--Alice Oswald]

from The Guardian: Why I pulled out of the T.S. Eliot poetry prize
then The Telegraph: We shouldn't forget that T.S. Eliot was a banker
then The Bookseller: Kinsella joins Oswald in withdrawing from T.S. Eliot Award
then The Guardian: Should the arts be more selective about sponsors?
then The Guardian: The T.S. Eliot prize is no less honourable for its sponsorship
then New Statesman: Keeping poetry outside the comfort zone

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