The NZ Poetry Society is no longer meeting Creative New Zealand's "strategic priorities".
Creative New Zealand has turned down the NZPS's grant application for the 2009-2010 financial year. After being supported for many years by CNZ, the NZPS has been let loose to stand or fall on its own merits. With the recent decision by the Arts Editor of The Listener to stop publishing poetry (a decision that is now being revisited, thanks to the volume of responses to the decision), there seems to be a belief by the holders of the purse strings that poetry is somehow not a part of New Zealand culture that warrants public financial support. Given that writing is an equal opportunity art, requiring the minimum of materials and available to anyone, this seems a strange attitude. It's long been said that there's no money in poetry, though many of us work hard at it in spite of that prejudice. It seems CNZ is determined to prove it's true.
4 comments:
I was going to write a particularly caustic post on my blog on the topic of "strategic priorities" for literature - but it turned into a short story instead. I will just say what a pity it is that Joyce, Kafka, and Plath, that Mansfield, Sargeson, Frame, Curnow and Baxter, didn't have the comfort of "strategic priorities" to light their lonely way through literature.
Just what is going on with CNZ & poetry? Steele Roberts tried & failed to get funding for Moonshot. Then, if I remember correctly, CNZ chopped all funding to Bravado. It's as if they just want the poets to just go away and wither. We all have day jobs and just need a little support. How can you fit in with the priorities one year and then be surplus to requirements? Grr.
Is it OK if I copy your post, attribute it to you, and publish it in Notebook? You have written eloquently on a very painful and very stupid decision.
Sure Harvey. Thanks for the kind feedback. Actually we didn't fit all that well last year either - we received only half what we asked for, so the writing was on the wall even then. I thought that improving my grant application-writing skills and demonstrating the growth I have managed to achieve in the Society's membership would make a difference. Now I don't think it matters - the process is so opaque that it feels like buying a Lotto ticket to apply at all.
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