View Single Post
  #14  
Unread 02-06-2018, 05:12 PM
Susan McLean Susan McLean is offline
Member
 
Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: Iowa City, IA, USA
Posts: 10,090
Default

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
Reply With Quote