Future Focus: BBC CSL

If poetry is so important why is it so hard to build a career as a poet, publisher or producer? Do publications and prizes open doors to a writing career or jobs as teachers, academics and stand-in social workers?

Jay Mitra and Griot Gabriel join two Writing Squad grads to share their hopes and fears for a future in poetry. Both poised for the next step after their debut pamphlet, Fahad Al-Amoudi is Poetry Editor at Penguin Press – and Helen Bowell is co-founder of Dead (Women) Poets Society and editor of Bi-Lines an anthology of Bi+ Poets.

If poetry is to take its place at the heart of British cultural life how do we make being one of our next generation of poets viable?