Britain’s premier poetry press, Bloodaxe will be joining us at UoS library on March 27th for our 2025 publishing fair. Leah Parkinson met senior editor Neil Astley to find out more about the publisher who smashed the mould of poetry publishing in Britain and changed it forever. Read the interview and then meet Bloodaxe yourself at our drop in fair, 11.00-16.00 on the library ground floor.
Q: First and foremost, why did you start Bloodaxe?
A: I started it in the late ‘70s, because I felt what was being published by the London publishers wasn’t very adventurous. It was a time when Newcastle was a real thriving poetry scene. A lot of readings happening, presses and magazines. Just a whole buzz of things going on there, which didn’t seem at all reflected in what was being published by the mainstream publishers, so I was wanting to set up an alternative to what people were getting.
When I started, there were hardly any writers from diverse backgrounds, hardly any translations, which interested me greatly. There were very few women published, and gradually I started adding women to the list and broadening the list, and publishing a number of women’s anthologies, which really encouraged a lot of new women poets to come forward and see themselves as writers, which was one of the previous issues.
So really, I was starting as a small press to give a platform to those writers that were being overlooked, starting off with a number of writers from the North.
Q: It’s been twenty years since your lecture at StAnza about diversifying voices in publishing. What was the impact of that lecture on the publishing world?
A: There was a kind of reactionary period around the time of that lecture. The Guardian were quite shocked, because it gave the statistics showing how very few writers from diverse backgrounds were being reviewed in The Guardian. They got rid of the person that was editing that page at the time, and who was basically selecting which books were being reviewed, because they realised it was totally at odds with their democratic base.
Then, the editors of Poetry Review had their services terminated, because they were doing something very narrow as well. It really did open things up a lot I think, that lecture. It was quite a scene change, and since then it’s just kept going from strength to strength.
Also, Bernadine Evaristo published the Free Verse Report, showing how very few poets from diverse backgrounds were being published in book form. And then she set up The Complete Works mentoring scheme with Spread the Word, and then the first ten of those poets were published in one of the ten anthologies we did. That grew into 30 poets altogether.
It really reflects much more of the diversity of what is being written now in terms of what’s being published.
Q: I think it’s fair to say you’ve ‘head hunted’ and developed some of the UK’s most successful writers, like Bernadine Evaristo. What qualities do you look for in a good piece of writing?
A: The subject matter is important. But also the ability to marry form and feeling. It’s very important that they know poetry – they’re not just starting out blank.
Diversity is not just to do with where the poets come from as people, it’s also to do with the kinds of work they’re doing, so I’ve always been concerned to publish a very wide range of poets of different kinds, and who write different kinds of poetry, because I think there’s good poetry in all genres.
A number of publishers really concentrate on a particular area, whereas I’ve tried to look at the best I can from all the different areas of poetry. And translations have also been a very important part of that, because that’s fed into literary culture. I see it all as a sort of big mix, and it’s important to draw in as many strands of it as possible for readers and writers.
You have to feel that what you’re reading is a book that no one else could have written. That it’s work unique to that person, to that voice, to that writer. Something that has the technique, as well as something really different and how to say it.
Q: I know that sometimes, you’ll publish a poem in an anthology from a poet whose other works you didn’t take on. What is it about these singular poems that strike you?
A: Sometimes a poem just hits you in the face. It may be that the rest of the work doesn’t hit the mark the way that one poem does.
Q: What would you say to someone interested in getting into poetry?
A: Read is the main thing. I don’t think you can develop at all unless you read voraciously. Read all kinds of poetry. Read the kinds of poets that you are drawn to and just keep reading.
Some people worry about influence, but influence is really important because you have to work through influence, and then develop your own work having absorbed those influences. I don’t think you can actually write in a vacuum. You have to just read, read and read.
Q: Do you think what we need from poetry has changed since you started out?
A: Yeah. I think that what people write about has changed a lot. I mean for example, women poets I’ve published are writing about things like childbirth, family, child-rearing and all those areas that previously men didn’t write about, opening up a whole area of experience and feeling for people to take on.
Poets have been looking at all areas of life and bringing those into their writing, whereas previously, poetry was very focused on just certain areas of experience.
Q: Your recent works ‘Soul Food’ and ‘Soul Feast’ are really relevant, given everything that’s going on in the world right now. What are they saying to readers?
A: We can try and find some hope in absorbing ourselves in those poems, because it is such a horrible time. People do need another place to go and feel and think, which I think those poems help provide.
Q: I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that what you’ve done for poetry has changed the way we view and access poetry.
A: Yeah, thank you. In fact the second poet I published, first in book form, was David Constantine from Salford originally, so the road started with Salford.
Q: Where does the name ‘Bloodaxe’ come from?
A: Eric Bloodaxe was the last Viking king of Northumbria, which was then the king of York, which was everything north of the Humber. So in the North East when I started, a lot of the cultural things that were named after people like Bede and Cuthbert from the religious tradition of the North East, and I thought it was time to honour the Viking tradition.
It’s a very memorable name, and it sort of took off and worked. The first five to six years or so of Bloodaxe, lots of poets I published were working class, from the north. North Lancashire, Yorkshire, North East and so on, which was an area that was very much neglected poetry publishing. Because at that time, most of the poetry publishers were in London, and they were Oxbridge educated men.
I think that’s another important thing that Bloodaxe did over the years. I started from that base and then broadened out from that.
Q: What is it about Northern voices that are so distinctive?
A: Directness. Honesty, authenticity, and experience.
Q: If you could save only one book for the world, what would it be?
A: Staying Alive.
Q: Three words that describe what you’re looking for when you open a new submission?
A: Unlike anyone else.
Q: What one quality above all does someone working in publishing need?
A: Persistence.
Q: Favourite Character in Fiction?
A: Bartleby.
Q: Three words that describe what you love about The North of Britain?
A: Home sweet home.