X.J. Kennedy Parody Award
 

I am honored to judge the next contest named for such a fine man and poet: http://www.measurepress.com/measure/...-parody-award/

Good choice. And how many entries do you plan to read?

I think that remains to be negotiated. I like to read as many as possible.

Please let us know when you work that out. When I lose, I want it to be your decision and not that of a screener.

Still a little time.

I am reading them all.

Well negotiated.

Michael, what do you think of the lack of anonymity for entrants? If you read them all, I am less concerned. When the same screener/judge does--or did--98% of the screening, that is, judging, it seems more problematic, especially when the same names would advance year after year.

John,

When I judged last year, the packet was sent to me sans names--anonymous.

Best, Tony

Yes, these guidelines strike me as very unusual: "Author’s name, address, phone number, e-mail address, and name of poem being parodied should be typed on each entry." I wonder if this is a change from last year? Did someone scrub the entries of the names last year before giving them to the judge?

I guess the contest organizers need names and addresses in order to contact the winner and finalists. So, if Tony received blind entries last year, I would assume Mike (this year) did, too.

The online submission form provides names and addresses, but this contest asked for names to be "typed" on each entry, which means that the judge will see the poet's name unless someone goes to the effort of removing it. (It did not say to put the information on a separate page or to do anything to safeguard anonymity). If I have misunderstood the guidelines and was supposed to submit the poems free of identifying information, I hope the organizers give entrants like me a chance to resubmit in the intended format (or refund the entry fee if the entries are to be disqualified).

Yup, someone must have scrubbed the names from the PDFs I received. Best, T

Roger:

Tony is right. Rob Griffith is scrubbing.

Mike