Cuts-hit Poetry Book Society to close

Organisation founded by TS Eliot to ‘propagate the art of poetry’ will hand over activities after losing struggle to survive following axing of ACE funding

Founded more than 60 years ago by TS Eliot and his friends to “propagate the art of poetry”, the Poetry Book Society has announced that it will be closing its doors and handing over its operations, five years after its funding was axed by the Arts Council England.

The organisation, which saw more than 100 poets band together to protest its 2011 ACE funding cut, said that it would be transferring its “key” activities to Inpress and the TS Eliot Foundation, with its three members of staff made redundant. Inpress, a not-for-profit sales and marketing organisation for small poetry and literary publishers, will take over its 1,000-plus membership and continue the PBS’s quarterly “selectors’ choice” bulletin and book of poetry. The TS Eliot Foundation will take on the management of the prestigious TS Eliot poetry prize, which was set up by the PBS in 1993 in honour of its founder.