Showing posts with label Judges. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Judges. Show all posts

Contest: Hollis Summers Poetry Prize 2009

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Tis' the season.

Announcements for this round of contests are beginning to fill my snail mail mailbox, and yesterday brought a call for manuscripts for the 2009 Hollis Summers Poetry Prize.

The fee is $20.00, and the prize is $1,000--all things considered, not too bad.

However, their statement on judging should be cause for concern (the bold font has been added for emphasis):
Previous judges include: David Lehman, Mary Kinzie, David Yezzi, James Cummins, Alan Shapiro, Rachel Hadas, Carolyn Kizer, Eavan Boland, Andrew Hudgins, Louis Simpson, and Miller Williams. The final judge for the competition will be announced when the winner is named in April. Individual criticism of manuscripts cannot be given.
Based on that policy, I would not recommend this contest (See Ideal Guideline #1).

If the final judge is kept a secret, how can an entrant know whether or not he/she knows the judge?

What if it turns out the entrant has won and he/she turns out to be a student or even relative of the judge? Will the prize still be awarded to that person?

Also, if the judge recognizes the entrant's work and based on that information eliminates the entrant's manuscript, will the entrant receive a fee refund?

Potential entrants might do well to ask these questions before submitting to the Hollis Summers contest. Their website does not offer much more in the way of guidelines, so you might try their contact page.

Forum Thread: Publishers' Reading Fees: Pro or Con?


As more small publishers begin charging reading fees, you might want to conduct some serious research before writing those checks.

For example, Google "Iowa" + "Foetry" and see what you find. Better yet, try "Tupelo Press" + "Foetry" or even "Tupelo Press" + "Poets.org." Then make your decision whether or not you'll write and send that check.

Educate yourself. Love everyone, but trust no one until you do a little digging. Trust your intuition, but only after you do your homework.

Make sure that your target publishers don't have a history of taking your money and then engaging in cronyism and questionable publishing practices. It's one thing for an owner/editor to grant publishing contracts to his/her friends when no contest and/or reading fee money is involved, but do you really want to fund the editor's friends' writing career at the expense of your pocketbook?

Twenty-five dollars here, and thirty-five dollars there. After a while it begins to add up.

For a mere $7.00 - $35.00 a year, you could register your own snappy domain name and set up your own online press. It's not difficult to do. Set up a Blogger or WordPress blog for free, publish a "Call for Manuscripts," and in you're in business. You can then publish your friends' work. Your friends can set up their own domain names and blogs and then publish your work. And beyond the domain names, it won't cost either of you a dime. And if you don't mind "blogspot" or "WordPress" in your URL, you don't even need a domain name.

Welcome to the 21st Century.

The 20th Century method: set up a press, send out fliers, and buy ads in all the major writing magazines. Publish a few issues, and then set up a contest, and advertise that as well. Schmooze at conferences and get grant money from your new friends who have been appointed by the NEA, etc., to hand out money. Then when you are appointed to dole out public money, you return the favor.

ThisIsTheWayItWorks.

And if you aren't in this loop, you might as well forget about it.

But don't worry about it--you now live in the 21st century and have the web at your hands for
  • Research


  • Self-Publishing


  • Publishing others' work

You can actually earn a little money by blogging, and some people make a lot of money at it, so why place your writing career in the hands of a stranger who doesn't give a damn about you or your work?

Learn your way around a computer and the web, and forget about the "old" ways of getting published. Learn a bit about Search Engine and Keyword Optimization. And don't be afraid of html. Get computer savvy asap. The web offers a lot of free articles, and much of it is accurate, even Wikipedia.

Other reasons not to pay a reading/contest fee:

  • If you're an unknown, it's basically a crap shoot. As a former editor, I can tell you how easy it is for a screener to miss a good poem, story, or essay. If you are known to the editor, your work will get a more careful reading, and don't believe otherwise. If you are unknown, your work will receive a perfunctory glance.


  • Your work may not be ready for publication (one must always consider this possibility).


  • Your writing style might not suit the taste of the publisher, screener, and/or judge (a lot of hoops to jump through).


Before sending a reading or contest fee, watch for these red flags:

  • The publisher consistently publishes the same poets and writers. If this is a contest that advertises manuscript "anonymity," this is a definite red flag.


  • You receive nothing for your fee except a form rejection letter.


  • The screeners and final judges are anonymous.


  • The publisher consistently selects the work of friends, family, and former students and professors (finding this out may require a little digging).


  • The publisher has a history of dubious behavior.
I last entered a contest in 2005; I sent my contest entry from an Eastern European country (where I was living at the time) at considerable expense. At the time, I was very naive and was under the mistaken impression that the final judge would be reading all the entries.

I then stumbled upon Foetry and quickly discovered the reality: that typically, only 5-10% of all manuscripts are forwarded to the final judge. In addition, unless you know if the preliminary screeners are graduate students or professionals, then you are not properly informed.

As much as I enjoy reading some of my students' work, I certainly wouldn't want them to judge my work because I understand all too well that their critical/ analytical abilities are not yet quite developed; some of them are still writing about wads of snot in search of the Holy Grail (I'm not kidding, either). Would you want a judge who develops piece of snot as the protagonist of his story to make a screening decision about your work?

Obviously I am biased against paying an editor/publisher to read writers' work, and I will not pretend otherwise or apologize for this viewpoint.

However, I am willing to consider what you think about this practice. If someone can make a compelling argument in favor of reading fees as part of the publishing model , I will even elevate it to a post.

By the way, can someone please tell me the difference between a reading and a contest fee?
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Guest Writer: PAULA ABDUL = JORIE GRAHAM? (by Monday Love)

The popularity of "American Idol" would seem to confirm that large swaths of pop music audiences prefer "Judging/Competition/Win-Lose/Survivor" thrills to the actual music, and why is it no surprise that a major judge on "American Idol" has no clue and doesn't even know what she's judging?

When "the Contest" (the elated winner, the bitter loser) becomes more important than what is actually being judged, it is inevitable that we have "judges" like Paula Abdul, who, like Jorie Graham, are mired in big, stinky, judging scandals.

There are other similarities, too; both Graham and Abdul are "good people"; they are kind, they love giving praise, and they adore crowning "winners," but if the judge shows no responsibility to what is ostensibly being judged, all this "nice" is merely a cover for damaging incompetence which hurts everyone in the long run.

Both Graham and Abdul have been judged favorably for doing (poetry, singing) what they in turn, "judge," but it's been a long time since Abdul has had a genuine hit, and it's been a long time since Graham has written a good poem.

Abdul was caught on live TV, this week, "judging" a number which hadn't even happened yet.

Graham has been caught (most notably by Foetry.com) giving poetry prizes to students and lovers rather than actually judging contests.

Graham holds the highest academic poetry position in the world at Harvard, and yet she's a scandal-ridden judge, and her actual poetry credentials are weak: she can't write verse like the bards of old, or even write verse like living versifiers, she's never published an essay of note on poetry: theory, history, or any aspect of the art, and today Ms. Graham has been reduced to waging a cynical campaign to save her poetic reputation--by showing how much she cares about the planet. Jorie Graham cares more about global warming than you do, and this makes her not only the best poet, but a terrific judge of poetry, it seems.

After her poetry contest judging scandals, Graham said she would never judge poetry contests again. But now Graham is back as a judge, signing on to judge a big poetry contest. Maybe Graham envies Paula Abdul and all the attention and power judging confers.

Who knows? Hey, you go, girl!

--Monday Love

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(Foetry friends and foes will remember Monday Love as being a regular on the now-archived Foetry forum.)

WARNING! Before Entering the Next "Discovery"/Boston Review 2008 Poetry Contest...

Poets.net is not going to get into evaluating the individual merits of literary contests, but the following blurb cannot go unnoticed:

Now in its fifth decade, the "Discovery"/Boston Review Poetry Contest, formerly "Discovery"/The Nation, is designed to attract large audiences to poets who have not yet published a book. This year, the Poetry Center is proud to partner with Boston Review. Four winners are awarded a reading at the Y (set for Monday, May 5, 8:15 pm), publication in the Boston Review and $500. Timothy Donnelly, poetry editor at Boston Review, coordinates the contest, and three leading poets are invited to judge.

We're pleased to announce that Jorie Graham, Reginald Shepherd and James Tate will judge in 2008. Many winners of this contest have gone on to distinguished careers as poets, among them Marilyn Hacker, Katha Pollitt, Mary Jo Salter and Gary Soto.

See here for source.

Very interesting piece, given that Jorie Graham has supposedly “retired” from judging contests. Before entering this contest (or any other contest with her name attached to it), please check out the Foetry Archive.

Essentially, Ms. Graham has a penchant for selecting friends, students, and lovers (the most notorious, her now-husband Peter Sacks) for major prizes, so before writing that check, you might want to check around on the internet before deciding to send money. [Update: Thankfully, the deadline has passed for this year's contest.]

If Boston Review is smart, its staff will "retire" Jorie Graham from its slate of judges.

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