Ken, I think you hit the right tone in your post. And you're right about
Graham. Obscurity & Intellectual dishonesty will get you a job at Harvard. I
was, a decade ago, a member of the Board of the Associated Writing Programs,
the organization that coordinates all the MFA programs in the states & which
holds a big annual conference. AWP also runs a literary competition & was
among the first organizations to really spell out in detail that judges
could not choose former students & game the system in other ways. I can see
how people simply dismiss contests as fundamentally corrupt, but lots of
small presses survive by running an annual contest. I'd prefer that
organizers move away from the celebrity judge mentality, though. If you set
yourself up as an editor of a press, then you should make your own editorial
decisions. Of course, the impulse to publicize your contest with a famous
name is almost irresistible.
jd
On 3/18/07, Kenneth Wolman <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> Joseph Duemer wrote:
> > Avoiding the work I should be doing, I wrote this last night
> > <http://www.sharpsand.net/2007/03/17/poetry-contest/>on my blog. May
> > be of
> > interest.
>
> Is the whole contest business still an issue? When did it become so?
> Maybe that's another way to ask how long have contests existed at all.
> "For the best prose nonfiction, Ralph W. Emerson for 'Self-Reliance.'"
> Whose student was Emerson's that the palm was thrown his way?
>
> Doubtless I have the sour grapes mentality of someone who's won exactly
> one anything in 17 years of this Fame Is The Spur routine. Fame, I can
> assure myself at least, lasts less than 15 minutes and is useful only if
> you take the fact of the prize name and work your ass off afterwards.
> Nobody will solicit you. I'm thinking that maybe there really are a few
> suckers left (I was one) who think that the world will beat a path to
> your door after you've won a contest sponsored by Margie. The award I
> won was for a state prize that had no entry fee. The second contest I
> entered was via the benighted Poetry Foundation, about two years ago,
> and promised everything but 72 virgins to the poet who, having made it
> to 50 or more, was publishing a first book: publication, ten grand,
> maybe a big supply of chips for the roulette tables in AC. So I got one
> real thing from it: I finished a book manuscript. At last, albeit
> subject to change. Landis Everson, whoever *he* is, made it to 79 and
> won. No argument from me. I don't know him or his work so passion,
> envy, jealousy, and hate don't figure into it.
>
> I recall that when that website (Instant Mistrust Alert) Foetry exposed
> the fact(?) that Jorie Graham basically had slanted contests she judged
> so her former students won. Instantly, she became the Rosie Ruiz of
> poetry. Remember Rosie? She's the lady who 20+ years ago took the
> subway part of the way toward the finish line of the NYC Marathon and
> then claimed she won. Her exposure destroyed her credibility forever,
> as well it might. What's happened to Graham, aka "The Fixer"?
> Anything? I gather she has a new job, at Harvard, surely made
> relatively smooth for her because of her association with Helen H.
> Vendler who, in her turn, has been a Graham champion forever. [Notice I
> am omitting my private opinion of Graham's poetry].
>
> It sums up as I don't know why things win or lose. It is, as Joe noted,
> a crapshoot. I suppose that everyone objected to loading the dice.
>
> Maybe poetry as become just like American business: any advantage is not
> to be despised, no underhanded tactic shall be eschewed, and the only
> rule is to *win*.
>
> Which is sad.
>
> Ken
>
>
> ------------
> Kenneth Wolman rainermaria.typepad.com
> Never give up. And never, under any circumstances, face the facts. -- Ruth
> Gordon
>
--
Joseph Duemer
Professor of Humanities
Clarkson University
[sharpsand.net]
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