I first heard tell of Michael Schmidt in the summer of 1971. My wife, Patricia, and I had ben invited to tea by Edgell and Beatrix Rickword. It was a hot day, Tricia was six months pregnant, and we travelled by bus from Colchester via Eight Ash Green to the Rickword’s weekend retreat in Halstead, on the Essex/Suffolk border. We were treated to scones and fresh strawberries and made to feel very welcome by them both. As I remember, the conversation was fairly wide-ranging but mainly about poetry. Edgell was intrigued by my interest in Hugh MacDiarmid and particularly pleased by Tricia’s admiration for his poetry. In the course of the conversation, she asked about the possibility of a Collected Poems to take the place of the 1947 Bodley Head and 1970 Enitharmon volumes which were essentially selections. Edgell replied with unusual enthusiasm for a reputedly taciturn man that there was ‘a young chap in Oxford called Michael Schmidt’ who apparently had plans to set up a new press and wanted to publish ER’s collected poems and a collection of his essays.

A footnote? Well yes. At any rate, a glimpse into the beginning of an extraordinary adventure in the publication of poetry which – driven by the energy, commitment and extraordinary catholicity of judgement, taste and insight of its originator – resulted in the continuing achievements of the Carcanet Press and PNR.

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