Thank you for your balanced and informed post Rachel. It's important. At least I need to hear it.
Mairead
>>> [log in to unmask] 08/03/05 11:13 PM >>>
Like Kathleen Halme, the wife of Alan Cordle, founder of foetry.com, I
won the Contemporary Poetry Series competition without any acquaintance
with or relation to either the judge (in my case James Galvin) or the
series editor, Bin Ramke. No one, including Alan Cordle, has ever
claimed otherwise, as such claims would be entirely absurd.
I have no MFA--have, in fact, never been enrolled in an institution of
higher learning, and am such a shut-in that my entire poetry career has
been conducted through the mailbox and the computer. I won this contest
without any connections and without the position necessary to pay my
judges back in any way, except, I hope, by the reception my book HOTEL
IMPERIUM received. Still I have been troubled by numerous misstatements
of fact and wild exaggerations about the contest in foetry.com's wake,
and the anonymous forwarded email below is chockablock with them.
My intention had been to write something about the foetry affair when
things calmed down in my private life. My father has been ill and, in
fact, died a week ago today, so this response will be a bit telegraphic.
But I think some of what's below screams out for correction.
> Ramke
> >> regularly appointed as judges (all the judges were secret
> and thus this
> >> was hidden from view) individuals who then selected their friends,
> >> former students and lovers as "winners" of the poetry
> competition.
I learned that I had won the contest in a phone call from Bin Ramke,
with whom I had never previously spoken. I then asked for the name of
the judge and was given it: James Galvin, a complete stranger to me.
When it came time to write my acknowledgments, I thanked Galvin and
Ramke (among others), something that seemed fitting given that they had
changed my life. Would I have done this, and would Georgia have included
my thanks, if the names were to be kept under wraps?
When my book came out, and was listed at amazon.com, I added content to
the amazon listing by stating, in a section called "About the Author, "
"Rachel Loden's collection HOTEL IMPERIUM was selected by judge James
Galvin and series editor Bin Ramke as winner of the Contemporary Poetry
Series competition of the University of Georgia Press." This statement
has been up at amazon.com since the book was published in 1999 (click on
"See all Editorial Reviews"):
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0820321699/qid%3D1012230186/sr%3D
8-1/ref%3Dsr%5F8%5F3%5F1/104-8997235-1194354
Thus the judge may have been secret before the selection was made, as
one might expect, but nothing was "hidden from view" after the fact.
And although I can only speak about my own book, and its selection, I
can state categorically that in my case, the judge and series editor did
_not_ select " their friends, former students and lovers as 'winners' of
the poetry competition."
> >> We assume most of the
> manuscripts
> >> were discarded unread. There was no need for a judge to
> read them since
> >> their pick was preordained.
If the manuscripts of strangers were discarded, how did mine get picked?
If "their pick was preordained," how can the selection of my manuscript
be explained?
> >> What this has done is create a false literary history, a series of
> >> winners who never actually competed (the game was never played, the
> >> troops never got off the ship, etc) because the rest of the entry
> >> manuscripts (except for the $25 checks) were discarded.
The checks were for $20, not $25, and (see above) this winner did
compete, this game was played, this manuscript was not discarded.
> With their fake
> >> winning book, newly minted MFA (Iowa, Iowa!!) and a prize winning
> >> selection by the celebrity judges the "winner" was granted
> most favored
> >> status in the literary community.
Again: no fakery in my case. No Iowa (or other) MFA in my case. And
"most favored status in the literary community"? Please. My book
received wonderful reviews, and I still submit and publish my poems, but
no doors were thrown open for me, and there's no glamour in what can
only be called continuing obscurity.
> What was so
> >> interesting about Ramke is that he had a systematic way of empire
> >> building - of building up a series of obligations, staking out
> >> territory, of expanding his literary reputation at the
> expense of the
> >> unknown writers with their $25 checks.
How did he build empire with me? Or Kathleen Halme? What was his
"system" there?
Have to sign off, but hope I have given you some sense of the
hyperbole--and downright untruth--in the unsigned email below.
Rachel
----------------------------------------------------------
People that are really weird can get into sensitive
positions and have a tremendous impact on history.
--J. Danforth Quayle
Rachel Loden
http://www.thepomegranate.com/loden/
The Richard Nixon Snow Globe:
http://www.wildhoneypress.com/BOOKS/RNSG.htm
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Poetryetc provides a venue for a dialogue relating to
> poetry and poetics [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
> Behalf Of Richard Jeffrey Newman
> Sent: Monday, August 01, 2005 7:30 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: the mess at the univ. of georgia press
>
>
> I received this from someone else. I will not vouch for the truth of
> anything it says, but given our recent discussion of contests and the
> reference to foetry.com I thought you might all be interested
> in reading
> this:
>
>
>
> Richard
>
>
>
>
>
> There have been several responses to my e-mail this morning regarding
> >> the latest on the Poetry contest shenanigans and lamenting
> the demise of
> >> the University of Georgia Contemporary Poetry Series.
> >>
> >> I think it is helpful to remember the series of events related to
> >> Georgia. The University of Georgia is a public university
> funded by the
> >> state and tax dollars. The Press has received National
> Endowment money
> >> (taxpayer money) to fund the poetry series. Bin Ramke was
> Director for
> >> 22 years. Suspecting the conflicts that eventually were revealed a
> >> request was made to the press for a list of the anonymous
> judges. The
> >> request was denied. An Open Records Act request was made
> and Georgia was
> >> forced to yield the list and correspondence related to
> judging. Ramke
> >> named judges regularly from the Iowa Writers Workshop and
> in return was
> >> published on three different occasions (if not more) by
> the University
> >> of Iowa Press and another University of Iowa imprint, Kuhl
> House. Ramke
> >> regularly appointed as judges (all the judges were secret
> and thus this
> >> was hidden from view) individuals who then selected their friends,
> >> former students and lovers as "winners" of the poetry
> competition. As
> >> the same time two things were happening: 1.) writers were
> sending in
> >> money (between $15,000-$25,000 annually) to the Georgia
> series; 2.) a
> >> large truck from a recycling firm would show up at Georgia
> to recycle
> >> the unread manuscripts of the entrants. Ramke notes in one letter
> >> released under the Open Records Act that he has only
> screened half the
> >> entries when he reaches out and solicits to be a "winner" of the
> >> competition Peter Sacks of Harvard (Jorie Graham's soon to
> be husband
> >> and English Department colleague -remember now that Graham
> is the judge
> >> for that year). To add insult to injury Ramke never asked
> Sacks to pay
> >> the $25 entry fee!!!!!
> >>
> >> This is one example of many at the Georgia Series. The
> conservative
> >> estimate that we have of the monies taken in at Georgia
> for the poetry
> >> contest over the years is $250,000. We assume most of the
> manuscripts
> >> were discarded unread. There was no need for a judge to
> read them since
> >> their pick was preordained. Jorie Graham read only one
> manuscript in the
> >> year she was the judge: Peter Sacks. The entry fee checks
> were still
> >> removed and deposited by the University of Georgia Press.
> >>
> >> What this has done is create a false literary history, a series of
> >> winners who never actually competed (the game was never played, the
> >> troops never got off the ship, etc) because the rest of the entry
> >> manuscripts (except for the $25 checks) were discarded.
> With their fake
> >> winning book, newly minted MFA (Iowa, Iowa!!) and a prize winning
> >> selection by the celebrity judges the "winner" was granted
> most favored
> >> status in the literary community. If only in most
> instances the actual
> >> poetry of the "winner" lived up to that lofty status. And
> as scrutiny
> >> has fallen on other contests, the same pattern is
> repeated. What was so
> >> interesting about Ramke is that he had a systematic way of empire
> >> building - of building up a series of obligations, staking out
> >> territory, of expanding his literary reputation at the
> expense of the
> >> unknown writers with their $25 checks.
> >>
> >> *********************************
> >> The University of Georgia Press Contemporary Poetry Series judging
> >> conflicts have been documented in numerous stories
> throughout the United
> >> States, United Kingdom, Israel and this morning in
> Australia at: The
> >> Baltimore Sun, Boston Globe, The Oregonian, The Portland
> Tribune, The
> >> Detroit News, The Daily Iowan, The Chronicle of Higher
> Education, The
> >> Guardian (UK), In Higher Education.com
> <http://education.com/> , The Los
> Angeles Times,
> >> Mobylives.com <http://mobylives.com/> , The Providence
> Journal, The San
> Francisco Chronicle.
> >>
> >> The fallout has been swift:
> >>
> >> After twenty-two years as director, Bin Ramke has resigned
> as director
> >> of the University of Georgia Contemporary Poetry Series.
> >>
> >> Jorie Graham, Boylston Professor Endowed Chair, Harvard
> University will
> >> no longer judge literary contests.
> >>
> >> The University of Georgia just announced it is discontinuing the
> >> Contemporary Poetry Series. There will no longer be a book
> series or
> >> annual competition.
> >>
> >> http://www.ugapress.uga.edu/info_aup_submitcps.html
> >>
> >> The Vassar Miller Prize published by the University of
> North Texas Press
> >> charges a $20.00 fee to enter its annual competition. The
> Press solicits
> >> entries on an annual basis. The prize is named for poet
> Vassar Miller,
> >> called by Larry McMurtry "the only writer worth reading in Texas."
> >>
> >> After documenting the many conflicts in the selections of
> judges and
> >> winners (all of whom have connections to the director or
> the judges) and
> >> the fact that the prize has never had any Texas judges or
> winners and in
> >> fact is not even based in Texas, the director of the
> series has just
> >> now resigned. There will be discussions as to how to continue the
> >> contest under a new director.
> >>
>
>
>
http://www.spiralbridge.org
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