Every
Saturday afternoon from the early 1960s onwards, the diminutive,
genial [Bernard] Stone would dispense free glasses of wine to a
boozy, bohemian crowd. This included not only Horowitz, but also Alan
Brownjohn, Christopher Logue, Lawrence Durrell, Alan Sillitoe and Sir
John Waller, the last invariably squiring a tough-looking,
semi-literate, gay pick-up whom he would introduce as "a
wonderful new poet". Another colourful regular at these Saturday
afternoon parties was the hellraising, drug-addicted novelist,
Alexander Trocchi.
Stone
went on to create Cafe Books, which specialised in pamphlets by young
poets such as Roger McGough and Brian Patten. The Turret Bookshop
also provided the base for both Turret Books and the Steam Press,
which was run in partnership with Stone's friend, the cartoonist
Ralph Steadman, whose illustrations adorned two of Stone's children's
books. Under the Steam Press and Turret Books imprints, a range of
publications by the likes of Alan Brownjohn and Ted Hughes were
released in limited editions.
Obituary
of Bernard Stone in the Guardian
As
the 1980s moved into the 1990s, Camden became a magnet for the
world's teenagers and Compendium underwent a facelift. Mike [Hart]
formalised its literary scene by initiating regular readings in the
bookshop, something of an innovation at the time. Visiting Americans,
from old beat heroes like Lawrence Ferlinghetti to new literary lions
like Walter Mosley, read there; so too did the London writers Iain
Sinclair, Martin Millar and Derek Raymond.
Obituary
of Mike Hart in the Guardian
And I’d love to see a modern version
of the late Bernard Stone’s Turret Bookshop, a poetry bookshop that
ran from the 50s to the 70s in London. But that is a job for someone
else. And what a great use of Arts Council funding that would be.
Ross
Bradshaw in Staple
After
writing the above coda to an article about bookselling in Staple
(where, by the way, I under-represented the longevity of Bernard
Stone’s Turret Bookshop) several people mentioned the absence
of a dedicated poetry bookshop in London.
The
Turret will never be built again, the rise of the internet cut away
Compendium’s base of imported books but their absence – together
with the much missed Poetry Society’s book room – has meant there
is no dedicated place selling poetry over the counter in Britain, by
which I mean London, the only place a poetry bookshop would be
economic.
Not
long after these specialist outlets ran out of steam or moved on, the
main chain in the UK, Waterstones, took a much harder approach to
what they stocked and what they returned. Now, in many major towns
and cities, the only poetry books actually on sale are the popular
anthologies, books by long dead poets and books by a handful of
popular writers. It is near impossible to browse through the next
level of poets beyond Cope, Duffy, Heaney… and to find who is on
the up, who’s new. All poetry publishers have been affected by
this. Of the major bookshops perhaps only Foyles has a good poetry
section and one where a book sold to the shop remains sold.
The
most significant outlets are Festivals, Ledbury, Stanza, Aldeburgh;
the regular rounds of readings; the Poetry Book Society. None of
these allow an easy way in to the casual buyer, the person who wants
a present, the school librarian that wants to build up a section from
books they have touched or seen. There is nowhere for the newly
interested to browse, nowhere for the obscure to nestle next to the
popular, nowhere that brings the wide range of magazines together
(for sale), nowhere to provide the most natural background to
launches and readings where one book leads to another, nowhere that
displays a range of critical work next to material in translation,
next to poetry cards, next to Candlestick’s poetry pamphlets, next
to old and important anthologies, next to CDs of poetry being read,
next to limited editions while behind the counter there is someone
who knows what the customer is talking about. Digital has its
limitations (though any poetry bookshop could also sell on line).
I
emphasise for sale, as the Poetry Library and the Scottish Poetry
Library does this for researchers and browsers, but poetry needs to
sell. And by sale I mean over the counter to the passing stranger –
not by subscription. The PBS does, but has a naturally limited
constituency and the Scottish Poetry Library does, better, but with
only a limited range of books.
The
Arts Council provides funding for authors, for residencies, for
training courses, for Festivals, for publishers, for Inpress to
distribute publishers, for the Poetry Library, but not a bookshop…
Why
not?
