[Clive Watkins]

Philip Hoy, Managing Editor of the Waywiser Press (London), has asked me to post a reminder that the press is now accepting submissions of poetry manuscripts for the second annual Anthony Hecht Poetry Prize. The postmark deadline for submissions is 1st December 2006. The winner receives $3,000 or £1,750, paid in May 2007, and publication of the winning manuscript both in the United States and in the United Kingdom in the autumn of 2007. Further details are available at http://www.waywiser-press.com/hechtprize2006.html .

Members living in the area of Washington DC may be interested to know that at 5.00 p.m. on Saturday, 11th November, Morri Creech, the winner of the first Anthony Hecht Poetry Prize, will be reading from his collection, Field Knowledge, at an event which forms part of the fourth DC International Poetry Festival. Philip Hoy will say a few words about the prize; the reading itself will be introduced by J. D. McClatchy, Editor of <u>The Yale Review</u>, who was the inaugural contest's final judge. The event will take place at

Chapters Literary Bookstore
445 11th Street., NW
Near Metro Center, 11th Street Exit
Washington DC 20004
T: (202) 737 5553.

Clive Watkins

[Susan McLean]

I'll just add that according to the latest Poets & Writers magazine, the judge this time is Mary Jo Salter. If you write formal verse and don't know her work, you should. I think it is always helpful to know who is judging the contest before entering (it gives the person entering better odds, if he or she takes the time to find out something about the judge's own style). One can't assume that judges like only poems like their own, but they certainly can't be assumed to dislike things in their own style. Contests that hide the identity of the judge may increase their own bottom line, but at the cost of luring in contestants who may be wasting their time and money. The odds are bad enough in the best of circumstances.

Susan