THOUGHTS ABOUT JUDGING POETRY (#10)

Philip Guston comes to mind -- specifically how I have so much respect and admiration for his development of his art...and specifically how he wasn't afraid to switch directions from abstraction expressionism to what might have seemed its antithesis at the time: cartoony depictions. I admire the expanse of his mind and heart that allowed him to grow, as much as I admire the results of what Willem de Kooning aptly described at the time as works reflecting "freedom."

Philip Guston comes to mind as I've just read the first two SELECTEDS from the pile of COLLECTEDs OR SELECTEDs in this poetry competition I'm judging. While, as I said in my sixth post in this series, I try not to bring any criteria to a book but instead try to understand it on its own terms, assessing SELECTEDs/COLLECTEDs is a unique situation (for me) where I do bring a criteria to my reading of them -- even as I gently insist that this criteria surely should be inherent in the nature of a SELECTED or COLLECTED.

To wit, I view a SELECTED or COLLECTED as also something that offers something about the poet's development in addition to what else that book offers.

And so, Philip Guston comes to mind because the first two SELECTEDs I've just read disappoint, in terms of this particular perspective. That is, there seem to be no meaningful shift in how the poems were written over a prolonged period of time. Regardless of how lovely individual poems are, the collections overall are one-note wonders. The thing is: a poetry book can be a one-note wonder. But if a SELECTED or COLLECTED is just a thicker one-note wonder, is that a lesser achievement because of the nature of being a SELECTED or COLLECTED?

Of course both approaches (and many others) are valid. Going back to the visual art metaphor (how 'bout those monochromes after monochromes after monochromes...?!), there are plenty of artists who spend their lifetimes painting the same painting again and again and, somehow, there's both a logic as well as sublimity to the existence of such a body of work. But that I'm mentally cogitating over this, I concede, relates to the one bias I concede in terms of how I am operating as a judge:

I have a bias towards ambition in what an artist is trying to create. For poetry, I have a bias to those poets who write as if they make language and not just inherit it.

*

Relatedly, Catherine (hi Kasia!) Daly's posted another response, and I excerpt from it where she quite intriguingly says:

I think it is actually more ethical to say, ok, these are all ones I would publish. Rather than leave it to some sort of chance operation, I will choose among them with a motive.

What's interesting about Catherine's post is she's had occasions to talk confidentially with some poetry competition judges about the final stages of judging -- the motive (good word) for choosing the final one winner among a group of noteworthy finalists. And one of the reasons conceded by those judges is the identity of the publisher -- e.g., that an award would "help out" a particular press!

I was perversely tickled to see that example. Because I know of a contest winner who I'd long suspected received hir award due to the identity of hir (beloved in some circles) publisher. The problem is that the award had a, um, obnoxious effect on the poet -- the poet now believes s/he is an Artiste Who Knows More Than Others And Now Should Be A Gatekeeper Of Sorts since, after all, said poet got this big award! So I only have one plea to future poetry judges -- if you're going to turn to an *external* factor such as the identity of the publisher to make a decision, can you also please pay attention to another external factor as to whether an award would make a poet even more insufferable than usual?

THOUGHTS ABOUT JUDGING POETRY (#9)

HOW I WANT TO DIE


On a pyre—

Flames
eating my body
hotter than fire

for the poetry
in burning books

ravage more
than a drought-stricken forest’s revenge

for the creation of
                                                      paper







.

THOUGHTS ABOUT JUDGING POETRY (#8)

I enjoyed reading one book so much I ordered the poet's other, older books. Very kewl.

THOUGHTS ABOUT JUDGING POETRY (#7)

Perhaps blogging this series wasn't such a great idea. I'm looking at the last post and thinking, Well ain't you a tedious pedant!

THOUGHTS ABOUT JUDGING POETRY (#6)

My 8 millionth Peep just backchanneled with some questions about my ongoing process of judging a poetry contest:

1) What kind of criteria might be brought into play when judging a poem or a book of poems? I've never understood judgment to be anything other than purely subjective, in spite of all the theory that surrounds judgment and attempts to ground it.

2) So here's a question for you: what kind of criteria do you use? Is it something "formal"? Is it "the little hairs on the back of my neck go all aquiver?"

3) And here's another: how can you (how can anyone) be sure you're applying the same criteria at 2 pm that you did at 10 am the day before?

4) Finally, does it just come down to "I liked this best"? Which is fine, but is really different than "this **is** the best?"

Let me address the last question first. Of course it comes down to "I liked this best." I believe any contest result should be viewed as "The Winner According to Contest Judge ____" (and this contest's website will depict both winner and judge). But that's why I said (did I already say this?) that any poetry competition result is only as good as the poetry judge. (And I'd posited in my second post in this series that a judge's reading list, especially absent knowing anything else about that judge, might be a good way to understand something about that judge's points of view.) For example, if the judge is someone known for being open only or primarily to a certain group/aesthetic/et al and the winner is someone within that group/aesthetic/et al, then I personally don't give that result much credibility. AND what's hypocritical is if the competition is supposedly open to all poets (who will send in the competition entry fee) from all sorts of poetries.

Note that I say "being open [to]", versus, practicing a certain aesthetic. There are poets who write a certain way who are open to being moved by various poetries that aren't at all like they write -- those can be ideal poetry judges.

By the way, this also means that I suspect -- were I to devote more time to thinking about the matter -- that I would criticize the structure of keeping judges' identities confidential in poetry contests. Because saying a book is No. 1, according to CONTEST NAME instead of CONTEST NAME AS JUDGED BY JUDGE'S NAME, implies some objective standard. I've heard of arguments for keeping judges' names confidential, but the problem is the result is the implication of there having been an objective process; nor can one assess the significance of the winning choice absent knowing anything about the judge's predilections. It'd be like someone believing the choices in the Best American Poetry volumes without contextualizing the choices as the decisions of specific judges (how's about that BEST OF BEST OF AMERICAN POETRY volume, eh?).

As an aside, I just thought of another issue percolating on some blogs recently -- about whether judges of color are more likely to be more receptive or sensitive to authors of color. Well, I'm "of color" and I sincerely can say that I'm not paying attention to authorial biographies as I read through the poetry collections. Having said that, one of my top three favorites from what I've read so far has to do with the African diaspora (though I feel I immediately should say the book attracted me mostly for how the poems were made versus the subject matter). Would this book have surfaced to the reading of someone else not "of color"? I don't know, of course. But I do know that the content/topic of African diaspora, by itself, was not something that made me less (or more) receptive to the poems. Meanwhile, the other top two books are both by (I think) white poets -- one is overtly "political poetry" and the other is lyrical imagism. Go figger.

First question: So, for criteria used to judge poems, it depends on the judge.

Second question: I (deliberately) didn't bring any formal criteria to the judging process. The books with A-rankings do have to set my lovely hairs aquiver, but, you know, my hairs quiver for many reasons. When I read a poem or poetry book, I try not to set its terms for it -- I try to understand the terms on which the poems were created and see if the results are effective, by the standards of its own terms. (The worst criticism is when someone says of a poem, It should have done this, rather than looking at what is actually done.) A quick example might be one that I've been hearing lately about contemporary poems presumably not being sensitized enough to the politics of their times. Well, despite some empathy with that point of view, I'm still not going to lower my regard for a book that's all about, say, birding. I'm going to read those poems about birds and see if they end up not just being for the birds because they -- in that space of experiencing the poems -- move me to care about birds, learn from birds, get off on birds, etc.

Having said that, it is possible -- and, as I go into the judging process, it's looking to be the case -- that I will come up with a group of lovely A-rated poetry collections, each of which will be different from each other. If I like them all, how would I judge what's better than the other? I likely will then pay attention to its underlying (conceptual) terms. If books X, Y, and Z, for instance, are all about birds and I love them all, I might take note that X is about sparrows and Y is about eagles but Z -- that Z! -- is about sparrows, eagles, owls .. and then a hyena! In such a situation, I'm likely to give the award to Z. If I'm coming off as flakey, let me sum up by saying: if all books' quality seem otherwise equal/equivalent, my bias would be to the ones with the most ambition in what it was attempting to do...or be.

Third Question: Before I began this process, this factor actually worried me a little and that's why I always anticipated doing some re-readings of books. But I've been pleasantly surprised to find that as one is forced to choose one top winner from a gazillion poetry books, the bases by which books rise to the surface in my reading (by which it gets an A rating vs a mere checkmark, according to my preliminary look-see) are holding fast. So this question's concern seemed to be more valid in theory than practice -- at least it's coming out that way for me.

Also, I think the context here matters -- I'm judging a group of books for which one would become the sole recipient of a poetry prize, which is not quite the same as assessing a poem/poetry book and getting different reactions at different times of the day or while having different moods et al. The two can overlap but, this factor doesn't seem to be a strong one for purpose of judging a competition.

*****

Yes, I'm reading tons of poetry books as we speak. But do feel free to send me questions by back-channel. Moi is all about Toi.

THOUGHTS WHILE JUDGING POETRY (#5)

Catherine Daly has a reaction to my first post on THOUGHTS WHILE JUDGING POETRY. Very interesting and I excerpt:

.. a prize ...gives people outside the specialty on a hiring committee, or grant committee, or whatever, a sense of peer review, a sense that this is work that is somehow "approved"

Catherine's assessment is undoubtedly true, but it's another bankrupt assessment based on how people don't care enough about poetry to do their own direct due diligence. Let me put it this way--I've read about 25% of the entrants so far and ... Wait, let me explain first what I do after reading each book:

I have a list of all entrants. After reading each book, I place marks by their titles: a check, an "F" or an "A"...and now I've expanded it to include "A+" as I discovered that within the original "A" group, there still can be a stand-out or two which presumably could become the one winner. (I'd asked the contest administrator if I could choose more than one winner as I suspect there could be more than one winner, but I was told to limit moiself to one top choice.)

A book that gets a check-mark means, for my purposes, that it's a perfectly legit -- often wonderful -- poetry book, but isn't necessarily a cut above other lovely poetry collections to be the competition winner. The "F" doesn't necessarily mean the book's poems fail but that it's not going to have a shot at winning the competition despite how many re-reads I will do (and I plan to do some re-reads later in the process).

So, after reading about 25% of the entrants so far, I've got an "A" or "A+" after four books. Most books get a check. Check this out: none of the books which won manuscript competitions that I've read so far are among the A/A+ rated books. And one of them actually got categorized as an "F".

In past readings of poetry books, I can't say I discern consistently-higher quality among prize-winning books relative to other books not published through contests. Judging this competition continues to validate my sense that if a particular poetry book is going to be privileged over other poetry books, it shouldn't be because it won some competition (whose field of entrants is never going to be all-encompassing anyway).

As an aside, I'm sort of amused by these manuscript-competition winners participating in another contest. If a manuscript won a contest, the resulting book is No. 1, so to speak. If that same book now doesn't win another contest, doesn't that cheapen the worth of the earlier prize? I mean, the public may not know since competitions don't usually publicize the identity of all entrants -- but the poet or publisher would know that hir prize-winning book lost elsewhere. So why not quit while the book's ahead? (I'm probably over-thinking this point...)

Here's another point that may be related -- I mentioned in my first post on this series that I'd requested to read ALL books submitted to the contest, rather than judging what might be sent to me after some screening. Based on the poets participating in this contest, I'm fairly sure that my eventual choice of winner would be different based on whether I read all the books or allowed some screening. So, don't many contests screen entries before a selected group is send over to the final judge?

That's the thing about poetry -- if you don't experience it directly for yourself (if you don't actually read the book), you have no business making any sort of comment (let alone judgment) on it. If there's one creature that often belies its reputation, it's that poetic critter.

If poetry contests are here to stay -- if only because poetry contest fees are a major source of revenues for many presses which are located in an industry that doesn't enjoy humongous sales -- then maybe judges should be forced to address all entries. I anticipate the (logistical) objections (none of which I consider insurmountable) many might raise to my suggestion. But given the nature of poetry, how can it be otherwise?

I say this to my son all the time: whatever it is you're going to do, always try to do it right. Aw yeah -- we just got his second quarter grades: he got an "A" average. Poetry judges should get an A, too, for their approach/efforts before they begin to grade other poets. Give judges a bigger cut of the funds raised from contest fees, if necessary, but have them address all entries. Fairness is possible, even in a world greased by cultural capital.

Lastly, as another aside, this post would not have been written in this manner if current poetry economics weren't so moronic.

THOUGHTS WHILE JUDGING POETRY (#4)

When I first opened the boxes of books for the poetry competition I'm judging, I noticed several COLLECTEDs or SELECTEDs by reputable poets. And I wondered how it would be possible for a one-project (so to speak) poetry book to compete against such tomes. It's like a slice of a poet's life competing against an entire life, isn't it?

Well, I just read a book -- let's call it ABC -- that's not a COLLECTED or SELECTED (by a poet whose name was previously unknown to me) which blew away everything I'd read up to that point. I can easily see how this would compete against a poet's life work. El punto has several implications which I don't have time to write about right now ... but I'll share a couple of thoughts:

-- sometimes, when a poet is so blessed, hir poems are able to sustain for a period of time a certain vibrancy/energy/frisson. I thought that it would be this type of book that would overcome the weight of a COLLECTED or SELECTED. But ABC, while certainly vibrant, is not in this category for the category is too limited to encapsulate its achievement. ABC shows a different path of how to create a stellar poetic achievement. And its path? Something that shows the limits of imagination and that I would categorize as -- for the moment of the poems' creation anyway -- Poetry as a Way of Life where intellect and heart marries to make each other bigger than before.

But it's still early in my reading of all entrants; let's see what future reading will undercover. And this is also a moment for me to say:

I felt conflicted when I decided to judge this poetry competition, but the experience to date is a reminder: it's a blessing to read many poems -- and one blessing is certainly to come across previously unknown poets' works -- and I am grateful to ALL of these poets.

THOUGHTS WHILE JUDGING POETRY (#3)

Some blurbing patterns and observations as I go through the process of reading books for judging a poetry competition:

The BIG NAMES (like a Nobel Prize winner) can practice brevity or generality, because who cares what's said -- the point is their names are on the book as recommenders.

Some small names act like BIG NAMES.

Those who are experts in some field but not necessarily in poetry are often the most earnest -- and (relatively) long-winded -- as they craft a blurb that will show that their expertise elsewhere translates in sufficient poetic expertise such that they are legit blurbers for poetry (got that? Good).

It's quite clear that no one is discussing the purpose of blurbs. The point, as I once understood it a long time ago, is that a blurb is supposed to help persuade someone to actually buy the book. Now, poets are getting blurbs from even names which probably will be unrecognizeable to many (yes, Honey, your teacher may be known in your classroom but ...?) -- so who would care that Missy X thinks, to quote from one blurb, "[This book] is one of the most unsettling, timely, and technically marvelous new books I've read in a long, long time." But no one is really thinking to check this practice because (1) poetry doesn't sell much anyway and (2), to paraphrase that saying, The most famous poet is anonymous.

Another result of the above is that people don't bother to note, Conflict of Interest!, when authors blurb other poets who are published by the same publisher. Then again, I don't know why I bother nota bene-ing this when poets blurb folks they've slept with (not referring now to the books I'm reading but to other past incidents) .... Or maybe this is more honest: to wit -- if a poet blurbs another poet with whom s/he's had sex, is it likely that the lay was great? Now, what's the correlation between great sex and great writing? It's a reverse correlation, isn't it, when it comes to poetry....forgive Moi, I digress...

Actually, maybe there's another result of blurbs (whether or not such helps in selling a book). Someone once said that certain places don't review books that don't carry blurbs.

Does John Ashbery really hold the Guinness World Record for having provided the most blurbs? Coz lovely Denise Duhamel seems to have a shot at that record...!

One can tell if a blurber gave a close reading to a manuscript -- a give-away against a close reading is if the blurber uses the blurbing opportunity to fight one of the many tedious battles in the poetry world, e.g. something that starts, "If you think New Formalism is dead....." bla bla. If I never thought Formalism, old or new, is dead, does this mean I shouldn't continue reading the blurb? But a blurb that actually engages matters specifically in the book at least is respectable.

Many blurbers confuse "engages matters specifically in the book" with quoting excerpts.

I don't understand why many don't understand that the least effective blurbs are those that are offered by poets who *share community(ies)*. (Oh, I implicate moiself in this, too, but: think about it, will you!)

Still, most blurbers, I sense, are actually sincere in trying to be helpful and honest with their blurbs. I feel like I should praise these good-hearted people (and I do), but I also feel, um, pity and such sorta overwhelms the praise-gratitude I'd be inclined to give these people for trying to help out. Perhaps it's because the matter of blurbs is one of the many reasons that make me feel that poets need to have more pride than to allow themselves to abide by, instead of challenge, certain practices on how we're supposed to promote poetry.

I should get back to my BLURBED BOOK PROJECT....if only because THIS may be a false start to it. The adoption really upended this project, among others.

There's enough hot air in blurbs to create an alternative energy industry -- at least to power things like my son's holiday present of hand-made rockets. We set this one off recently at one of vineyards supplying the HIGHLY-RECOMMENDED!(I promise that "blurb" comes without prior sex even though their wines are great facilitators of such) Dutch Henry Winery:

THOUGHTS WHILE JUDGING POETRY (#2)

I've decided to blog selected thoughts while reading the books for this poetry competition that Moi is judging. I say "selected" because I don't wish to blog thoughts that reveal the identities of those who've chosen to submit books for the competition. So, Moi second public thought (the first being the prior post):

I think that (named) judges of poetry competitions should make available their (poetry) reading lists. For Moi, I do so intermittently through my "Relished W(h)ine" posts (if you want to know the poetry publications I read for 2009, check HERE). Any competition winner is really only as valid as the validity of the competition judge, isn't it? Well, I'm thinking a poet's reading list would reveal something about hir qualifications to judge a competition that notionally is open to all sorts of poetries (as long as the contestants paid the entry fees, that is).

So, for example, if a judge only read "nature poetry" (and, by implication, that would mean only wanted to read "nature poetry"), then it's highly unlikely that the competition's winner would be, say, a spoken word collection or an ekphrastic poetry collection based on Dutch paintings of tavern interiors.

Not to say that a reading list would show the all-encompassing portrait of a judge's aesthetic taste. Were I to be looking and assessing such a list, for instance, I'd want to at least see that there's indication that the judge is open to many poetries -- as open as many of these competitions are for purpose of taking manuscripts/books to which are attached competition entry fees.

And if a judge doesn't read much (contemporary) poetry, well, yes -- then I say that poet has no business judging a competition (I am thinking of certain poet-teachers I know who don't read much outside the works that they teach their classes, for instance. They can have legit reasons for not reading much, like book budgets and time constraints -- which is fine but don't even think of judging one of these national or international competitions which often don't limit the type of poetries that can be submitted for consideration). Anyway, I'ma jes sayin'...

Transparency -- let's take that word back from Washington, shall we?

THOUGHTS WHILE JUDGING POETRY (#1)

So I’ve just received the books that I need to read for judging a poetry contest. Unlike with many other competitions, I accepted the invitation to judge only if I read every single book that entered the contest (i.e. no prior screening between the poetry books and my loving eyes). I am busy, but never too busy for Poetry -- without which I wouldn't be the fabulous Moi that we all adore.

That said, I guess I'm surprised to see how so many of the submitted books have already won national competitions in order to get published. Yet now, the authors or publishers or publicists submit them to a new book contest for published books?

Somehow, it strikes me as a bit much (like, such a neediness for awards!) -- it seems to me, if you already won one prize and got published as a result (the most important reward, it seems to me, unless the prize money is at least seven figures…), why continue to submit to prize-contests? But, lookit, I’m just observing, not really being that critical -- I’m like Philip Lamantia in this fashion: I don’t judge how poets make money. And it’s undoubtedly true that prizes can bolster resumes and affect how some poets pay their rent…

No coincidence, I'm sure, that there's a high preponderance of academic presses in the mix...

SAN FRANCISCO => SONOMA => NEW YORK CITY!

Hope you join Moi as I'LL BE WINGIN' IT AT

Flamenco Poetry (Pawainc Reading Series)
with Sandy McIntosh, Ed Lozada, Michelle Bautista and a flamenco guest artist
Sunday, 2:15 p.m., Feb. 21, 2010
AT: Bayanihan Community Center
1010 Mission St.
San Francisco


Boog City Bay Area Reading
with David Kirschenbaum and editors of publishers featured through his Boog City's "levy lives: celebrating the renegade press" Reading Series in NYC including Jill Stengel of a+bend, Albert Flynn Desilver of Owl Press and David Buuck of Tripwire.
AT: Books and Bookshelves
99 Sanchez St., San Francisco
Wednesday, 7:30 p.m., March 17, 2010


Literature Panel @ Babaylan Conference
with Evelina Galang, Marie Therese Sulit, Aimee Suzara
AT: Sonoma State University
1801 East Cotati Ave, Rohnert Park
Saturday, 1:45-3:15, April 17, 2010


Book Launch for Babaylan: Filipinos and the Call of the Indigenous at Babaylan Conference
with anthology contributors and editors including Leny Strobel
AT: Sonoma State University
1801 East Cotati Ave, Rohnert Park
Sunday, 1:00-2:00, April 18, 2010


"On Empire(s)" (Small Press Traffic Reading Series)
with Susan Gevirtz
AT: CCAC
1111 -- 8th Street, San Francisco
Friday, 7 p.m., May 7, 2010


Marsh Hawk Press Book Launch
with Philip Lopate, Sandy McIntosh and Neil de la Flor
Venue TBA (but you know Marsh Hawk serves the best reading appetizers complete, but of course, with wine...!)
New York City
May 13, 2010