Grant for big publisher while charity loses out

Arts chiefs have sparked outrage by giving taxpayers' money to a profitable publisher while withdrawing funding from a cash-strapped charity devoted to poetry.

Faber, which derives a huge income from TS Eliot's Cats, has been awarded a grant by Arts Council England while the Poetry Book Society, the charity that Eliot helped to found in the Fifties and which organises a poetry prize in his memory, is now facing closure following the loss of its grant.

Nobel-winning poet Seamus Heaney, Ted Hughes and Philip Larkin are among Faber's stable of names. The company generated a record turnover of £17.5 million last year and a profit of £436,000.

Faber's poets have seen their sales boosted by PBS's promotion of its books. Larkin valued the charity enough to become one of its directors.
The Arts Council is giving Faber £40,000 for each of the next three years, to support new poets, while cancelling its £100,000 annual support for the poetry group.

Desmond Clarke, a former Faber director and ex-chairman of the PBS, said: "Eliot would have been absolutely horrified that [Faber] should accept public money when they're making so much, and that the PBS, the organisation that he himself was instrumental in founding, has its grant withdrawn.

"The PBS can't replace the £100,000, so it and the Eliot Prize must be wound up. It's a very sad story for poetry lovers."