Bloodaxe Books was founded in Newcastle upon Tyne 30 years ago by Neil Astley. Since then, it has published nearly 1,000 poetry books, quantities probably matched only by Michael Schmidt's Manchester-based Carcanet Press. Bloodaxe has reined in a more left-ward, experimental and internationalist stable, as distinct from Carcanet's conservative bent. Both publishers have recently become more venturesome as well as more prolific than their main rivals. None of these bigger verse-publishing guns could have fired up a tiny fraction of their output without financial support from arts councils and the like, or without the spadework of little presses, magazines, readings, festivals and performance bandwagons.