ABSTRACT
The economic recessions and stringencies in Britain in the 1980s and 1990s have naturally affected 'the poetry business'. But not so much poets and the poems they write: poets are not easily crushed by economics, however depressed the condition of publishers, the exigencies of bookselling, or the fluctuating fortunes of journals, broadcasting, arts councils, funding bodies, and the like. Poets expect little from such sources, now or in the past. In different ways, both the Poetry Society and the Poetry Book Society have been affected by such policy changes. The Poetry Society was in financial disarray for some years, moved to new and shrunken premises, and no longer seems to have the means or machinery to organise nationwide readings and visits by poets in the way it very actively did at one time with its National Poetry Secretariat. National poetry competitions such as the Arvon and the National Poetry Competition still continue, drawing in thousands of entrants anonymously each year.
