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1 Whatever it is that the literature department of Arts Council England (ACE) is for, it can’t be for this: pulling the rug from under two organisations (the Poetry Book Society (PBS), the Poetry Trust) who for many years have helped make poetry books available to more readers than they’d otherwise get to, and from under the publishers Arc, Enitharmon and Flambard, whose work (translations, new writers and neglected older ones, local writing) is completely in accord with ACE stated priorities ‘Disgusting,’ was a word used by the Poet Laureate, Carol Ann Duffy, in regard to the PBS cut, which along with the others was announced in late March 2011, and she’s right   2 This is a mess come out of a mess, and the first mess is ACE itself Go to the ACE website and you’ll find not just the mission statement stuff (‘Arts Council England works to get great art to everyone by championing, developing and investing in artistic experiences that enrich people’s lives’) and the topical stuff (‘a transformational Olympics opportunity’) and some literature priorities (‘We will prioritise those seeking to implement more sustainable business models’) and a press release on the recent funding decisions (‘The Arts Council has endeavoured to support and protect poetry, new writers and literature in translation’), but enough downloadable material to seriously slow your laptop, including a 47-page ‘Review of research and literature to inform the Arts Council’s ten-year strategic framework’ whose five pages of references include a report on ‘UK Music Industry Greenhouse Gas Emissions for 2007’   3 You could get lost in there Once upon a time the Arts Council literature department was widely viewed as an exclusive gentlemen’s club; now everyone can get in but the extreme bureaucracy is baffling Take the lift to the second floor, the doorman will say, go through the double doors on your left, take the second right, the first left and knock on the door marked ‘Excellence’   4 Part of the fog is business-speak, which so horribly determines the ways in which all facets of public life are debated (the