BookBrunch - Putting poets first

Founded by TS Eliot and a group of friends in 1953, at the suggestion of the poet Stephen Spender, the Poetry Book SocietySpecialist book club founded by T S Eliot in 1953, which aims to offer the best new poetry published in the UK and Ireland. Members buy at 25% discount. The PBS has a handsome new website at  www.poetrybooks.co.uk (PBS) had as its mission "to propagate the art of poetry". Eliot was supported by the recently established Arts Council, which instigated the setting up of the new poetry organisation early in the new Queen's reign and soon after the Festival of Britain. Eliot, a publisher as well as a great poet, teamed up with other luminaries such as "the Gaffer", Basil Blackwell, founder of the bookshop chain, to set up an organisation with the entirely practical aim of getting poetry to a bigger audience of readers. For more than 61 years the PBS, operating as a small charity, has been doing just that, evolving into an upmarket and highly regarded club, which has at its heart the aim of connecting great poets with great readers. The Poet Selectors choose the best new books of the quarter to go in the Bulletin with their reviews, which are complemented by the poets' own comments on what they have written. The Choice book is sent to all full members, and there are four Recommendations, a Special Commendation, a Recommended Translation and a Pamphlet Choice, as well as short reviews of a number of other new books.