Jamie, I'm drawn in and love it when poets whose works I hugely admire, in this instance you and David, decide to debate. I find you not mainstream, and David both outlier and mainstream. I think that you both are constitutionally and politically non-mainstream, David more emphatically so.
I agree with your point to David ('Your own picture of each and every poetry community promoting "flat poetry" and indulging in "rampant brown-nosing", for all its even-handedness, is just as susceptible to a parodic treatment'). I also agree(d) with your previous conclusion that grants and competitions are not much different, since there's still the judging, the money, the recognition.
Yet, looking further into the grants and competitions processes, there has come an increasing, refreshing divide within the competitions themselves -- many of the 'big purse' competitions require 'blind submission' which often startlingly interrupts the recycling of awards from elites to elites (or read 'oft-published' and 'never/lesser published' or 'known' and 'unknown'). The Forward, for example, cannot accept blind submissions, and will not accept an individual poet's submission, only considering works presented by editors -- considerable hierarchical winnowing even before the judge, usually preceded by culling readers, has had a go at choosing.
Another trend that develops from 'blind submission' competitions is that the judge(s) are in some sense answerable/responding to a huge body of individual poets rather than a hierarchy of established editors. A poetry democracy.
Even as a native USAmerican, thus accustomed to 'hands-off-the-arts' government, I wince that the biggest money prizes translate (in the press, and to poets and wannabes) to meaning that the Best Poets have been chosen. Mark Weiss's example of Cuba's ubiquitous prizes for poetry sounds, happily, rather benign.
I'm unsure whether my own feelings are that I hate viewing poetry as a commodity -- naive me -- or whether I'd be perfectly delighted and quietly counter-insurgent if I were one of the rewarded elites.
Best,
Judy
On 15 October 2011 18:55, Jamie McKendrick
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
David, Even if
skeptical at the outset, I don't see the harm or the inherent
ridiculousness in trying to figure out and question what Michael referred
to, as at the very least, "widely
held conceptions... - accurate or not, those portrayals are now themselves part
of the history of literature."
There
may be something comic about the 'prize culture' which afflicts not just poetry,
but also the novel and the other arts. But even so, there's some merit in
looking at how it works. Your own picture of each and every poetry community
promoting "flat poetry" and indulging in "rampant brown-nosing", for all its
even-handedness, is just as susceptible to a parodic
treatment.
Best,
Jamie
----- Original Message -----
From:
[log in to unmask]" href="mailto:[log in to unmask]" target="_blank">David Bircumshaw
Sent: Saturday, October 15, 2011 4:31
PM
Subject: Re: Forward for RFL
Ah yes, 'to marrow and to marrow and to marrow'. I suppose allk
this debate about the meaning of a certain term here is rather like two bald
men fighting over the meaning of a comb, to adapt something else well
know. Or is the purpose of the said implement, or its
significance, or ... Ouch! Ow! Who did
that?