In 2016 Inpress Books Ltd, chaired by Ian Grant of Creative Structure and led by Sophie O’Neill, Managing Director of Inpress, rescued the Poetry Book Society (the PBS), from going into administration.
Set up by T S Eliot and colleagues in 1953 ‘to propagate the art of poetry’, the Poetry Book Society is a unique poetry society, providing information, reviews and discounts on the best contemporary poetry for an international community of readers. The selectors, practising poets, choose the best new poetry collection of the quarter, which is sent to full members as part of their membership. All members also receive the Bulletin, the quarterly review of new poetry, which contains the selectors’ reviews of the Choice and Recommendations and the selected poets’ comments on their own work.
All the recommended titles are available to purchase on this site, along with a wide range of other titles.
Inpress, supported by the Arts Council of England, acquired the assets of the Poetry Book Society and absorbed its liabilities, in the form of the members’ subscriptions left unfulfilled by the previous management. The PBS offices were moved to the Inpress office in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. By the end of 2016 the PBS was very pleased to have hired Alice Mullen as the new manager. Alice arrived from a very successful period as Marketing and Events manager at Carcanet Press and now leads the re-invigoration of the PBS, developing its membership and reaching more widely into the British and international contemporary poetry world.
Ian Grant serves as Chairman of the Poetry Book Society.
Activism, quote by poet Alice Walker
Alice Mullen, PBS manager
Malika Booker, poet and PBS board member