Jeremy Paxman won’t be there – but early in December a group of poets are taking his advice. Earlier this year the chairman of this year’s Forward prize judges and former Newsnight presenter made some controversial comments about the state of poetry. Half-jokingly, he suggested an “inquisition, in which poets would be called to account for their poetry and appear before a panel of ordinary people to explain why they chose to write about the particular subject they wrote about, and why they chose the particular form and language, idiom, the rest of it”.

Organisers of The Poetry Inquisition, at the Small White Elephant in Peckham Rye, south London on Wednesday 10 December, have taken him at his word, staging a night of “poetry held to account”. Every poet who reads – both open mic guests and featured poets – will face probing questions from the audience, and a good-natured but tough, “Newsnight-style grilling” by a panel of interrogators.

One of the organisers, Richard Osmond, explained:  “The Poetry Inquisition was inspired by Jeremy Paxman's wish … that poets be more accountable to ‘ordinary people’.  Most poets on my Facebook feed seemed to react quite indignantly to this suggestion, but I found it refreshing. 

“There seems to be a view, among many poets, that poetry is a special category of writing that, by definition, cannot be held to objective standards or spoken about in meaningful analytical language. At most panel discussions at poetry festivals, the discussion of the poet's art is limited to gentle ego stroking and general, mystical statements about the privileged status of poetry in regards to experience and feeling. In other words: when poets talk about poetry, they are usually still doing poetry. 

“For instance, I recently saw a Q&A with a poet whose work had been published in translation, at which the process of translation was described as ‘two dreamers sharing the same dream’. This is all well and good, and very lovely as a poetic line, but ultimately it is technically meaningless. Just because poetry is excused the burden of making logical sense, it doesn't mean that analysis of poetry should be given the same dispensation.

 “It may sound old-fashioned, but we want our poets to have considered thoughtfully the function of their writing, their role as a poet in society and, most unfashionably of all, the moral purpose of their work. Most of all, we want poets to be held to account by people who have not implicitly agreed to the ‘don't ask don't tell’ philosophy of contemporary poetry. We want to ask questions and have them answered. If it takes a sarcastic Newsnight-style grilling by villainous Jeremy Paxman-like interrogators, then so be it.”  

First featured poet to face the inquisition will be Kirsten Irving, co-editor at Sidekick Books, an experimental poetry press. The Poetry Inquisition is organised by 13 page press, the team behind 13 Pages magazine and The Mimic Octopus anthology.  It starts at 7.30pm. More details and Map