At first sight, Wolfgang, yours seems a valid attack on British parochialism, but on reflection it begins to fray a bit. For the Irish prizes Irish nationality (with long-term residence as an extending concession) would seem to be the limiting condition. This is not the case for the major British prizes whose short lists and winners are drawn from poets of other nationalities and residing elsewhere. On occasion they seem to have erroneously waived even their criterion of being first published in the UK. This makes their prizes, it seems to me, less rather than more parochial than their Irish counterparts. 
     While it does look unfair that Salzburg publications are then excluded from such prizes, it's obvious that to remove this condition would mean that instead of having to read 150 or so individual volumes (or now possibly quite a few more), judges would then be expected to read several thousand books (including those first published in the US, Canada, India, Australia and so on). I think you just have to accept that some limiting criteria have to be imposed to make the task of judging feasible.
   As to the spiky issue of fairness within the judging process, Poetry Review's editor has written an open letter to the three major UK prizes asking for more transparency and calling for a declaration of any interests on the part of judges. It will be interesting to see where this leads - so far only one of the prizes has responded positively to this invitation. My feeling is that where this reasonable request breaks down is on the question of friendship which may often anyway have a component of admiration for the work, and in a country as small as the UK that fabric of acquaintance and association is unavoidable.
Jamie



On 3 Oct 2015, at 08:52, Wolfgang Görtschacher <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

That the Levinson Prize "causes barely a ripple" - I think there are various reasons:

It is a prize that is awarded by only one magazine. Poetry magazine awards eight annual prizes for the best work published in Poetry during the past 12 months.

Secondly, it is worth $500 only. Apropos getting money into the hands of poets.

As a non-UK publisher (Poetry Salzburg), even considering the idea of submitting new collections for UK poetry prizes and awards, quickly ends in complete disillusionment. The guidelines defining the rules and conditions of entry usually contain the stereotypical phrase “first published in the UK or the Republic of Ireland”. The majority of the Irish poetry awards contrast pleasantly with their British counterparts. The Patrick Kavanagh Award, one of the most prestigious poetry prizes in Ireland, is confined to poets born in Ireland, or of Irish nationality, or a long-term resident of Ireland. Similarly, the Poetry Now Award is presented for the best single volume of poetry by an Irish poet. Our publications are eligible for Irish poetry prizes, but they are not eligible for the great majority of literary prizes in the UK. It is high time their administrators changed their policy and get rid of their parochialism. It would be interesting to find out whether this policy is in accordance with EU terms.


Wolfgang



Am 03.10.2015 um 01:34 schrieb Ron Silliman:
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Prizes by themselves are quite meaningless. Some prizes do have an impact of opening some doors, creating some opportunities (e.g. a reading series in Hong Kong that only invites winners of the Pulitzer), but even these are fairly minimal benefits when you think about it. In the US, there were really only 4 prize series for poetry through the Second World War -- the Levinson (given by Poetry, essentially a "best poem" award for the magazine), the Pulitzer, the Yale Younger Poets and -- just for students at Michigan -- the Hopwood. So when the Bollingen was created in 1948 and given to Pound, it was a very visible protest against the folks who wanted to ban his work after WW2.

The only reason the Pulitzer has its outsized prestige is because that is the award series created for newspapers, which means that newspapers have reported it faithfully forever. The Levinson, which is even older, goes out each year and causes barely a ripple -- Rae Armantrout just won it.

Overall, however, they are an index of culture, more useful in looking at the sociology of literature than in any inherent value. For example, that John Crow Ransom won his second Pulitzer in 1979 shows just how long the shadow of New Criticism lingered over the academy, or that Stevens and Marianne Moore did not receive any until the 1950s -- the era of Frank O'Hara and the prosecution of Howl.

One of the values of the plethora of awards we have now is that it lays bare the meaningless of it all. But anything that gets money into the hands of poets is something I would gladly support, even if it's poets who make me gag or yawn.

Ron