Interview with Miss Eliot

Interview with Miss Eliot

“Publishers print books to
create an audience for the
work of a writer and the
digital age challenges what
we have always done.”
—Stephen Page, Faber &
Faber CEO, The Telegraph

Actually Miss Eliot was—a clairvoyante
Madame Sosostris—was her game
She was The Witch—of Faber & Faber

Every Wednesday—a literary séance
Gathering around—an octagonal old table
There in the offices—by the British Museum

Reading aloud—opinions & submissions
Guarded now—by Mr. Robert Brown
The distinguished—Faber & Faber archivist

Miss Eliot—so very acerbic & witty
A decent critic—a dormant skill back then
Twenty mss. a week—accepting 2 or 3

Jill was rejected—Philip Larkin’s novel
Later accepted—with its garish cover
Miss Auden’s For the Time Being—chosen

This Waste Land psychic—had baggage:
Auden, Forster, Spender—and Ezra Pound
Moore, MacNeice—and Robert Lowell

Faber & Faber—such a busy witches coven
Publishing not only—Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake
But also Eliot’s—Old Possum’s Book of Cats

Bubble, Boil—Toil & Trouble!!!
Outta Faber & Faber’s—lovely Slush Pile
Came Hawk in the Rain—Lord of the Flies

Gone now—the stairwell cocktail parties
Eliot, Auden, Spender—MacNeice and
Ted Hughes glowering in the corner

Eliot probably—wouldn’t recognize it
Even tho he'd been—a senior investment
Banker back then—at Lloyd’s Bank

Preserving the best—poetry & prose
Despite supermarkets—large retailers
And heavily discounted—book prices

It’s Mass Market Time now—best sellers
Tacky celebrity—and misery memoirs
Clogging the shelves—and aisles

It seems as if—The Waste Land returns
The burial of books—Burial of the Dead
A heap of broken images—no longer read

A Game of Chess—no longer played
The Fire Sermon—no longer heard
What the Thunder Said—forgotten