Andrew Motion

THE poet laureate Andrew Motion is urging Camden Council to reconsider its plans to make poets pay rent on the community hall they run.
In a letter to Camden Council, Mr Motion, who lives in Highgate, says that he is “dismayed” to hear that Camden is now demanding £9,000 annual rent from the Torriano Poets for use of the Torriano Meeting House in Torriano Avenue, Kentish Town.
He writes: “This is bound to jeopardise the operations of the Meeting House – a deplorable thing in itself, and also a more general threat, since London is notoriously poorly-equipped with this kind of venue … The Torriano is a lung for the whole community.”
John Rety has run the Meeting House with Susan Johns since it opened 22 years ago, and during that time has not had to pay a penny in rent.
It has become well-known for its Sunday night poetry readings.
But Camden recently had a change of heart, sending the poets on a business course to teach them how to use the hall as an income-generating asset through hire charges, rehearsal incomes and a Friends scheme.
Another poetry group – Survivors Poetry – briefly considered moving in and helping with the rent, but those plans fell through after it was decided there was not enough room for two lots of poets. Mr Rety said: “We’ve had so much support. I’m not worried. We’ll just continue doing what we’ve always done. Either they’re going to listen to the poet laureate or not.”
Camden has said that every effort has been made to assist Torriano Poets in finding other funding.
A Camden Council spokeswoman said that the council’s position was unchanged despite the intervention of the Queen’s official poet. She added: “We have a duty to Camden residents to ensure that the money that Camden Council pays out in grants to voluntary and community organisations is spent effectively and productively. We expect these organisations to show that they are actively working to attract funds from other sources.”