"Poetry Book Contests Should be Abolished"
 

Poetry Book Contests Should be Abolished: Why Contests Are the Stupidest Way to Publish First Books
by Anis Shivani

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/anis-..._b_858819.html

I read this article a couple of years ago and just came across it again. I’m wondering what folks think about this topic. Have things changed at all since the article was written (2011)?

On the opposite side, a blinded contest is one of the few ways to do an end run around the inbred chumminess that plagues most publishers when they are not running a blinded contest.

Moreover, I am not sure that the generic quality of the winners is an indictment of the effect of the contests as much as an indictment of what gets praised in our vapid literary culture these days.

Hardly a ringing endorsement for the contests, I know...

Here's another opinion, unfortunately more than ten years old now, from a voice I trust more than Shivani's: A.E. Stallings.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/har.../11/no-contest

One additional point: When is one supposed to learn the rule that only first books may be published via contests? I seem to have committed some faux pas ;) as have recent winners of the New Criterion Book Prize John Foy and Moira Egan, both of whom had books out before their contest wins.

My first book was from WordTech, not a contest, and I'll talk about that in private if you want to talk.

A sad truth is that, from the standpoint of most publishers, readers don't want poetry. Most don't want to read it, let alone buy it. For those of us who've devoted years or lives to the art form, it's a painful realization.

Nor do most publishers have the resources to publicize our books. Those that do direct their resources to other non-poetry projects. My hat is off to those editors of small presses who sacrifice their own writing time to support the poets they publish.

Another factor: more & more readers encounter poetry through other media, often in performance or for free, on-line. With few exceptions, it's tough for even established poets to sell many copies of their books.

For these reasons, my view is that contests help protect & sustain the art of poetry in book form--at the very least, they contribute to sustaining a vital, varied range of voices that might not otherwise receive an editorial hearing. It's just not cost-effective for most publishers to bring out a book of poetry without the "push" that a contest provides.

Well, this is interesting. As one of those myriad punters who's made finals and semifinals but never won, I find this all quite topical. To a certain extent, I do feel that contests reflect technique; a few years ago, I never made it into the running, and it's less that my poems have improved than that my MSS have. They are tighter and better-organized. Constant rejection has refined my product, but I'm very glad to have been pointed to the 'sphere (by Katie Hoerth), after some years of rejection emails, with some actual feedback beyond thank you for entering, and the sense of a community. There is I think also a big step between finalist and winner. My 2c.

Lots of stuff in the links as well; I'm happy to have discovered Simic's New British Poetry, which I look forward to reading. In Oxford a year or two ago and nobody at Blackwell's recommended it as I searched for overviews. What we don't know.

Cheers,
John

On Contests
 

And here's another opinion on this topic, much older than Alicia's:

Cervantes, Second Part of the Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha.

Thanks, everybody, for sharing your thoughts and opinions about this topic. So far I’ve mostly entered contests for individual poems, most with no entry fee and a few with entry fees, and have won some and had honorable mentions for a few.

Regarding manuscript contests, I have never entered one until last week. I have no idea how it’s going to do. I don’t have tons of money to spend, so I must decide whether it’s worth entering these kinds of things.

Ted - Thanks for that Cervantes quote. It gave me a chuckle.

Marty, just a quick note to say I don't recommend indiscriminately entering these competitions.

Knowing the judge's work and/or past winners in previous years of the same competition might give a sense of what the judge might select or the screeners pass along; the named judge often reads only 10-20 manuscripts deemed finalists, with all others read by editorial staff or other people associated with the press or organization that sponsors the contest.

Therefore, being aware of the contest's stated or unstated aesthetic stance is pretty important. Ultimately, the goal is to gain a clear sense that the process is reasonable and reasonably transparent--one you can trust to be fair. And some quite fair, well-run contests reflect the tastes of a different corner of the poetic universe--a corner perfectly valid but not one that every poet inhabits.

Good luck!

Thanks, Ned. That makes a lot of sense.

Yup, even I have noticed that more than one "open" contest has an agenda or an axe to grind. But they can hardly announce that in their contest listing. It seems a tad dishonest though, or underhand.

Cheers,
John

Every publisher has a right to an aesthetic. If I were a judge of a contest, there are certain styles of poetry less likely to win by virtue of my beliefs on what matters in poetry; it's incumbent on the submitter to recognize and research these.

Where Shivani's right, though, is that there is an air of democratic principles that undergird many of these, and that's pure phoniness. Poetry, fair or not, has always been undemocratic, and every judge has an aesthetic preference.

The honest thing, I think, which some presses do, is to strongly encourage submitters to discover just what agenda their press (or judge) has by reading past work. Other presses (and judges) imply or indeed state that they are open to all genres and aesthetics, which indeed will not always be the case, if ever. Examples are legion.

Cheers,
John

Agree with Ned. For those of us who want to write formal poetry, we are just wasting our money by entering most contests other than the Wilbur, Justice, and Able Muse. (Full disclosure: my Able Muse book, Asperity Street, won no money but was published on the kind recommendation of Molly Peacock. I'm still trying for the other two.)

I also look at prizes that sometimes publish formal poetry, such as the Hecht Prize at Waywiser. Unfortunately, the presses that have published a formal work just a few times are often bad bets, because it turns out that the judge then was open to formal poetry, but the press does not let you know in advance who will be judging the contest (in this category I would put the Hollis Summers Poetry Prize at Ohio University Press and the T.S. Eliot Prize at Truman State University Press). The real iceberg is the screeners. If they are in an MFA program, most of them will have been taught to avoid formal verse like the plague. In those cases, it helps to know what the focus of the MFA program is that is running the contest. I have heard that Measure Press is willing to consider manuscripts outside the contest framework, so you might want to consider them

Susan

This has been a very interesting and informative discussion! I have enjoyed and learned something from each of your posts. I think two key points are (if you decide to enter manuscript contests): A) Keep in mind that the screeners will pass only those poems to the judge that are not too unusual and B) know something about the judge’s own writing style(s) and tastes.

I wish you all good luck in whatever contests you choose to enter.

Enough bad news here to sink The Good Ship Lollipop. Why do we do it? We're all cuckoo, every one.

Just wondering...if you do enter a publishing competition and happen to win, what do you get? A published book, yes. Any free copies? Listing in a catalog? Promotional advertising? Paid World Reading Tour (just kidding!)

I've saved a lot of money with the perspective that the odds of my winning a poetry manuscript contest are just slightly shy of PowerBall.

The other perspective? No longer is "self-publishing" or some digital version of it the realm of poetasters only. New publishing opportunities such as Kelsay Books, and self-publishing services online, are an alternative: you don't pay for publication, but enjoy publishing expertise. If I have to do my own promotion, I might as well own my own books, or some quantity of them anyway.

Poetry prestige? Duh.

I've always aimed to write the best poems I can in order to hang out with the best poets I know. So far so good.

Cheers all!