Book Contest Conventions Narrow the Scope of the Art
Finally, and perhaps most worrisome, book contests subtly corrupt the art by substituting the petty goal of winning for the grander one of writing original poetry. Contests have their unwritten conventions which, if followed, will increase likelihood of success. Study as many prize-winning volumes as you can; adjust your style and content accordingly; and you may find yourself in next year’s winners’ circle.
Poetry book contests privilege serious poems over humorous ones, pathos over wit, “sincerity” over virtuosity. They eschew satire and persona, and devalue variety in favor of consistency of theme, form, tone, and “voice.” A swerve into the ineffable in the last few lines of each poem will keep your work “open” and “risky” in conformance with current MFA workshop practice. Prefacing poems with epigraphs from fashionable poets (usually in translation) will let the judge know that you are or aspire to be professionally hip.
When in doubt refer to one of the many how-to, poetry-for-dummies books from creative writing department pros. They may be judging some of the contests you enter, so learning their tips for writing the way they do will stand you in good stead.
Above all, keep in mind that poetry collections must be novelistically structured. Before Emily Dickinson’s heap of 1,775 untitled poems could be competitive she would have to discard 1,700 of them, give each of the remaining 75 a title, sort them into three thematic batches, each with a section title and epigraph, and come up with a catchy “umbrella” title (Wild Nights might be a hit with student-screeners). This procedure is so de rigueur these days it’s as if there were a bumper sticker slapped on every collection, boasting: “My other book is a novella.”
Every once in a while, to be sure, an exciting, original book of poetry is selected by this suicidally inefficient process. Unfortunately, when this happens a book that deserves to be widely read is just another dim star lost in the Milky Way, barely able to shine its light beyond the captive audience that the contest launches into orbit around it.
Imagine what 20th century poetry would be like had Ezra Pound, Mrs. Alfred Nutt, John Quinn, James Laughlin, Barney Rosset, Cid Corman and Lawrence Ferlinghetti been content to be uncommitted contest coordinators rather than passionate editors, publishers, or patrons of the art. Behind The Waste Land, North of Boston, Patterson, Howl, and other landmark books of the last century were men and women willing to risk money, credibility, even imprisonment for poetry that mattered.
What About Single-Poem Contests?
The reader may be wondering why I’ve limited this article to poetry book contests. Are not my criticisms as applicable to single-poem contests run by literary journals? Once again my answer is: not really.
Single-poem contests do what contests should do — distinguish excellent work, without the negative side effects that book contests produce. The likelihood of the judge recognizing an associate is much less when a single poem (rather than an entire book) is on the table. Nor do single-poem contests add one jot to the glut that is increasingly marginalizing, even obscuring the best poetry. The winning poem appears on page x of the multi-page journal. A poem will appear on that page anyway, with or without the contest. By encouraging poets to submit their best work single-poem contests im-prove the quality of poetry published by the journal. Finalists frequently appear along with the winner(s), and the average quality of poems available to editors is heightened.
Single-poem contestants who receive the journal as an entry-fee benefit are treated not just to the work of the winner but to dozens of other poets, many of whom have proven track records and most of whom are being published through the regular submission process. This comparative dynamic encourages evaluation of both the winning poem and the judge’s decision; and that can lead entrants to reevaluate their own aesthetics, preferences, biases — a useful exercise that the hermetic nature of book contests cannot provide.
