CALSTOCK-based Peterloo Poets has been awarded a grant of £165,000 by the Arts Council for England?s Grants for the Arts scheme. The grant is to be funded over a three year programme of poetry publishing and events. The new lottery grant will enable Peterloo Poets to continue trading for another three years. Its future was in doubt when it lost its Arts Council England grant ? £55,000 in 2005/6 ? as a regularly funded organisation with effect from March 31 2006. At the time thousands of people ? including a number of high profile poetry lovers ? signed a petition protesting over the grant axing. Harry Chambers, publishing director of the Peterloo Poets said he along with the whole board of management were ?very grateful? for this grant. ?Without it Peterloo would have had to go out of existence. It is nice to know that we have somehow regained the trust of the Arts Council England.? Peterloo?s first volume in the new publishing programme is Punk with Dulcimer by Anna Crowe which has just been published. Born in Devonport and educated in France and St Andrews where she now lives Anna won first prize in the Peterloo Open Poetry Competition in 1993 and again in 1997. She will be one of the six readers at Peterloo?s eighth Annual International Poetry Festival that takes place in the Old Chapel, Calstock on Friday and Saturday, September 1 and 2.
