Doug, I must say I'm not entirely surprised Michael Palmer received such an
award, though I bet as deliberately-styled businessmen poets both Dana
Gioia and Ted Kooser feel they would have been a more appropriate choice
for the Wallace Stevens Award. It really comes down to who the judges were
and even on the AAP site I can't find a listing of those presiding in
2006. But take a look at previous panels and you'll find that the choices
for certain years become understandable in terms of personal taste and
whether a majority might agree to share the taste of the initiator:
http://www.poets.org/page.php/prmID/107
I was stunned when Jackson MacLow won this award in 1999, but now I'd bet
that Marjorie Perloff, Robert Creeley, and John Yau simply outnumbered
Frank Bidart & Sharon Olds, then one of the three brought up JML's name,
and the other two agreed that he was neglected and deserving.
I wonder what would happen to the virtually unquestioned prestige of
literary awards within the "school of quietude" if every aspect of the
decision-making process were transparent (i.e., recorded)? Barry
|