Poetry and Sexism in the Guardian Review, 2013/14
June 11, 2014
This has become an annual exercise, or rather a 13-monthly one. New readers, please see last year�s audit, and also the latest VIDA audit, for the background and reasons for doing this.
2013/14 results:
* Over a third (37%) of books reviewed are by female poets. This is the highest percentage yet, and only two points lower than the percentage of women�s books published by the big five poetry publishers.
* Just over a third (34%) of reviews are written by women.
* Middle-sized and small poetry publishers get only 4 books reviewed. It�s all about the big five.
* The Guardian is capable of breaking its own glass ceiling: the Saturday Poem has gone gender neutral!
* Black and Asian poets are very poorly represented in all categories, apparently not at all as reviewers or in the Saturday Poem.
* The Guardian is reviewing less poetry.
Conclusion:
* Incremental improvement. To achieve a Saturday Poem-style breakthrough, the Guardian might have to start reviewing a range of books more representative of the good poetry that�s being published today.
Figures for May 2013 to early June 2014 are in purple. Figures for mid March 2012 to end April 2013 are in red. Figures* for mid February 2011 to early March 2012 are in green. Figures* from January 2010 - early February 2011 are in blue. You can access the Guardian�s archive of reviews here.
A. Books reviewed in the Guardian�s Saturday Review
24 books by men, 14 books by women. That�s 63% and 37%.
36 books by men, 12 books by women. That�s 75% and 25%.
30 books by men, 16 books by women. That�s 65% and 35%.
27 books by men, 11 books by women. That�s 71% and 29%.
Best yet, and a big improvement on last year�s terrible figures. The split is getting close to the M:F ratio of books published by the big five poetry publishers, which from 2010 to April 2013 was 61:39, see here for the figures on that.
I think that only 2 books by black and Asian poets were reviewed, the same as last year. This time the poets were Derek Walcott and Grace Nicholls. The figure appears disproportionately low. However, at 5% it�s possible that it might not be far off the percentage for the big five. It would be good to audit the ethnic origin of poets published by the big five, but this would be much harder than last year�s gender audit.
See section C below for more on publishers.
The Guardian Review is reviewing less poetry: see this year�s decline in the number of reviews. The first two years� figures above don�t include the short reviews* the Guardian used to do.
B. Reviewers
25 men, 13 women. That�s 66% and 34%.
31 men, 17 women. That�s 65% and 35%.
32 men, 14 women. That�s 70% and 30%.
28 men, 10 women. That�s 74% and 26%.
The figures consolidate an upward trend, just about.
Female reviewers get given women�s and men�s books to review in roughly equal proportions. The male reviewers mostly get given books written by men.
No black or Asian reviewers, I think. Why not?
C. Publishers
In this category the figures are even worse than last year. 4 out of 38 books were published by smaller publishers; last year the number was 8.
Again it�s the big five (Bloodaxe Cape, Carcanet, Faber, Picador) who predominate. There are a few books from larger, non-poetry specialist publishers. Nothing at all by medium sized, high quality poetry publishers Seren or Salt; there wasn�t last year, either. The only smaller publishers represented, at one book each, are Shearsman, CB Editions, Polygon and Eggbox Publishing. Eggbox got in because they published a pamphlet by Faber author and last year�s Forward 1stCollection Prize winner, Sam Riviere.
British poetry culture has got more diverse, with a range of excellent smaller publishers flourishing and capturing attention. And there�s the rise of poetry pamphlets; it�s nice that the author of the Eggbox review, David Wheatley, talks a bit about poetry pamphlet culture generally. But that�s the only concession to these wider changes in the whole year�s Guardian output.
The Guardian Review�s glass ceiling for smaller publishers is firmly in place.
D. Saturday Poem
19 by men and 19 by women. That�s� 50% and 50%. Hooray!
23 by men and 13 by women. That�s 64% and 36%
33 by men and 18 by women. That�s 65% and 35%.
[I didn�t work this out for 2010.]
The Guardian can do it!! Many of the poems chosen are from new collections. A shame that all the poets are white, at least I think so. But it�s a start. Come on, Guardian Saturday Review � make these annual audits unnecessary! Do this blog out of a job! First step: start handing out a wider range of review copies. Then the numbers will improve.
E. Audits � what next
The emphasis of this audit is shifing slightly, from the VIDA-inspired gender-only audit that inspired it in the first place to a broader consideration of what lies behind the Guardian Review�s figures.
The main exercise I want to do, once my inner geek recovers from this one, is an audit of the Poetry Book Society choices and recommendations. If people have any other ideas, please say. And do check out the Sidekick Books blog, where Jon Stone has just started a series on how to fix contemporary poetry culture.
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* In the first two years, the Guardian also ran short reviews and I counted these separately (they improved the M:F ratio). There are still occasionally a few short reviews on the paperbacks page, but these don�t appear when one searches the Guardian�s online poetry reviews. All the figures given in this audit are for long reviews only. I always include Nicholas Lezard�s paperback review, if this is of a poetry book.
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