Inside Books: A poetic licence for hedge funds

Last week saw poets Alice Oswald and John Kinsella withdraw from the shortlist of the TS Eliot Prize. Their refusal to be in the running for this prestigious award was on the grounds that the Poetry Book Society, which runs it, is sponsored by hedge fund manager Aurum Funds. Oswald said that she thought ‘poetry should be questioning not endorsing such institutions’.

But, in this austere time of government cuts, when many arts organisations like the Poetry Book Society are about to lose their funding from the Arts Council, can we really blame them for accepting some ready cash from a hedge fund? Well, judging from the angry comments following any article in their defence, yes we can. Is there really nobody who, like me, thinks of this particular instance as pleasingly appropriate, given that TS Eliot himself was, less famously, a banker as well as a poet?

Oswald and Kinsella would no doubt have disapproved of Eliot’s earlier profession.