Sturgeon's Law

Steven,

I hereby kneel before you, asking for forgiveness for any and all rules I may have broken. As for th conflict of interest, it was my own fault to assume that a BMW 750li would be an appropriate thank-you for publishing my poem in the 11th muse this past year. Please sign for it and keep it when it arrives as a token of good faith that I shall never try to side step that particular ethical question again. By the way, would I be offending you if I were to sign over a 12% ownership in a profssional baseball team? You are under no obligation to select my new manuscript, "25 poems I Know Poetry West Will Publish Because I Bought Them All Microsoft Stock."

justin

p.s. I seriously apologize if my manuscript was one of the offenders.
 

hee hee...this is all very amusing. I fear that contests (in my life shall go the way of poetry readings (the strut and push crowd). i.e. out. Thanks for the heads up!
 

Would you clarify "unity of voice" versus "unity of style"?

Just curious what you think.
 

Justin:

The car you sent didn't have a sun roof. Unbelievable! (Seriously, I'm pretty sure your chapbook didn't present any negative issues.)

Beverly:

I wouldn't mind terribly much if they did go out. Too many poets, not enough readers.

Gina:

It's a little tough, since "voice" is such a nebulous thing, but by unity of style I meant something like "It's all tightly controlled blank verse" or "They're all wild-eyed prose poems" or "It's flowing, long-lined free-verse with a stately yet casual tone." With voice, I meant something a little more intangible, but that each poem, whatever its style or theme, seems like the unique work of this author rather than Joe Contestguy (or even Larry Levis). The two are obviously connected at least somewhat.
 

I totally agree with one and three. You just know when you get a cover letter that reads "I'm x years of age and have written since age x and have never tried to publish my poems until now" that you are in for a brutally bad read. Too, there are those manuscripts that have had poems published in a ton of prestigious journals but have no life -- rather, a kind of steely safeness to them.

The one that I have a problem with is four. If you find yourself in a situation where you've read a manuscript (or portions of it) defer to another judge or refund the money. It's really not fair to the entrant if the "conflict of interest" is a matter of association only. I recently had this problem with some people I knew that sent in a manuscript to my contest (I'd read with them at a local reading). In the end, it didn't matter because they didn't make the final cut, but I worried about the fact that I knew them or about them through local readings and such. That's why I think Foetry goes too far. If you've done this long enough, most people know someone through association in some way.
 

Steve:

I agree with you about refunding the money if there's a legit conflict. I don't consider the sort of loose association you mention to be a conflict, however. A friend, a former student, someone you actively helped with their manuscript: those are conflicts. Some guy you met at a conference once, a woman who knows someone you've worked with in the past: nah.
 

re: unity of voice, do things like Latinate/Germanic word choice ("illuminated" v. "lit", for example) and presence/absense of allegorical assumption (ie: assuming a reader knows particular references without explasition or footnote) factor in?

re: Association, the issue that I think gets lost is that - like it or not - people with similar tastes tend to move in similar circles. That means that, even blinded, a judge is more likely to select art by someone they've met because it's likely been influenced by artists the judge also likes. This in effect give the casual acquaintance an innocent advantage. There's a mild unfairness either way, against the artists if you exclude him, against poets who don't know the judge's aesthetic well if you don't. That's why it's important to enter contests judged by writers you know something about, which completes this circle of logic. This is why blinded contests may not actually be fairer than unblinded; you _should_ exclude people you know and who know you, no?
 

I think the word-root issue depends a lot on the poet, poem, and judge. And I don't like footnotes solely for the sake of explaining stuff, but I know people who get pissy if they don't understand things in a poem, too.

I think the concept of "blind" judging is only designed to prevent reflexive picking of people because you've heard of them. If you know them much, you're going to know the work anyway.
 

What if you like playing with your cats butt? I'm not saying I'd stuff BIG money up there, but a nickel? Maybe a dime? It's fun to see what cats do...
 

If only one could have that much fun with a poetry contest for just a dime...
 

As to what constitutes an improper relationship between judge and entrant . . . how about any relationship that could have privileged a particular entrant?

Yes, that's still subjective, but a bit less subjective than trying to puzzle out how significant the second cousin's hairstylist relationship is.

If it can be convincingly argued that a personal relationship, any personal relationship, influenced the selection of a winner, then that demonstrates impropriety . . . and the entrant should be disqualified and refunded his/her entry fee.

This kind of contest guideline exists in just about every other kind of contest aside from the literary.

Maybe the problem with coming to terms with this issue is that those involved are writers . . . and not lawyers. There are many legal precedents for contest guidelines, but literary contests have largely avoided "legalizing" guidelines, because they can fly under the legal radar.

But really, although this may be so, some of the cash prizes are pretty significant: $5k, $10k . . . and that doesn't even include grant awards that can, at times, far exceed these amounts.

What concerns me most is that many judges and editors don’t seem to be running their winner-selection logic through the ol’ legal intelligence at all. If those judges and editors began running a kind of “legal check” of their selections (instead of just thinking, “Hey, this is just my cup of tea! I’m pickin’ it!”), the whole contest system wouldn’t run into the kind of outrage and attack (defense?) coming from a Foetry.com.

-Matt
 

The same Matt who frequents the Foetry forum? If so, you're one of the few reasonable voices in that nuthouse.

That being said, I could do without the boilerplate copy, and your approach is if anything more subjective than mine. "No picking any manuscript where you have a direct personal relationship with the author or where you helped shape said manuscript" is pretty clear.

Please, by all means, show me non-poetry contests that refuse entries by Employees of the company, their family members, their friends, people they met at a conference a few years back, people who know people who know them, people who have similar aesthetic viewpoints, and people who once wrote something they admired.
 

Steven,

Yeah, I live among the nuts. I'm not often called reasonable, though. Thanks.

I'm not sure what a preferred legal wording for contest guidelines should be. "Privileging relationship" is one of those purposefully ambiguous terms that you might see used in a situation where there is room for argument, where the law needs to be interpreted (like copyright infringement).

So, subjective? Definitely. But intentionally and specifically so.

I'm in favor of casting a wide net . . . and not all that worried that the "great geniuses of our time" will get overlooked. Despite what some have said in the past to justify granting awards that demonstrate some possible impropriety, I think that if the work is really that good, it will eventually get published. And there are lots of contests out there.

But, I'm not all that sympathetic to the poetic plight. We live in an era in which poets can actually get paid to write and talk about poetry, can have "poetic professions", and can live comfortable, middle class lives. Far more poetry is published today than ever before.

Sure, the poetry habitat is overpopulated, especially out in the wild . . . but the universities are protected environments. To tell the truth, I think the academic life is a real apple of temptation for the poet today . . . and it might turn out to be poisoned.

You said: "Please, by all means, show me non-poetry contests that refuse entries by Employees of the company, their family members, their friends . . ."

You're kidding, right? I'm not sure because I'm extremely sleep deprived at the moment. Unscrew a cap from a bottle of soda advertising a contest (well, actually the guidelines are probably on the back of the label or something). Lotteries, definitely. Anything where real money is concerned. Anything sponsored by a business. Just read the fine print.

-Matt
 

Steven, I saw Fast Food Nation as a favorite book in your profile.

A great book. The kind of book everyone should read. Well-researched, well-written . . . important.

-Matt
 

Matt:

I'm right with you in being pissed off when judges say "It was objectively the best work" to justify picking their ex-student, something they are clearly incapable of being objective about. I'm also deeply suspicious of a poetry environment with more writers than readers, and of the academic careerist path, which almost assuredly does not help one's poetry be great.

However, on my contest rule, you cut off the wording at the key point. Lots of contests forbid entries by employees and family members and even friends, which is just. I'm not aware of many (I'm actually not aware of any, but some may exist) that forbid the distant sort of connections we're talking about: once played golf with, friend-of-a-friend, or what-have-you.