“Official Verse Culture” and the Poetry Contest phenomenon
7 May 2008“Official Verse Culture.” Sure gets easier to say each time.
Blogging about “Official Verse Culture,” the power we give it, and how we willingly participate in it has reminded me of Chris Tonelli’s (relatively) recent blog post, “Contest Culture and Poetic Community,” on the Ploughshares blog. An excerpt:
Who, exactly, wittles the slush pile into a manageable finalist pool? I’ve done it as a student intern, just barely into a graduate program. It’s this odd model of allowing, theoretically, the least qualified of those involved (the intern) choose the work that gets to the, theoretically, most qualified of those involved (the judge). The chances I, as a student intern 10 years ago, passed along the 10 best manuscripts, if given the chance to go back and review my choices, are slim to none. My guess is that a lot of sophistication and subtlety is lost on many a preliminary judge, as it was on me. This leads me to believe that much of what gets through is either gimmicky and loud or numbingly quiet–those that are undeniably under the umbrella of Poetry.
I really appreciate this blog post for its criticism of an ongoing system within “Official Verse Culture,” which has badly needed reexamination and restructuring. Still, I doubt our criticisms change much, if we all continue to participate in this part of “Official Verse Culture.”
Howard Junker has just posted this on the Zyzzyva blog: “The major way nonsuperstar poets get their books published is by entering them in contests…” I keep wondering, why is this the major way? Why must this be the major way? There are so many publishers of poetry out there, and most exist in spite of poetry not being a revenue generating genre. Additionally, there are so many new small publishers of poetry being born. There are bodies such as SPDBooks (Small Press Distribution) who are so effective in making all of this poetry available and accessible.
This year, I have not been keeping track of how much I have spent on poetry contests. Really, it’s only been a small number of contests, and a small amount of money, compared to what I hear other poets are shelling out every manuscript submission season. I hear of folks shelling out hundreds of dollars per manuscript submission season and that is staggering.
I will not be submitting to poetry contests anymore. Given the above model described by Tonelli, with the “least qualified” being bestowed the role as poetry institution gatekeeper, Diwata simply isn’t ever going to make it past a contest slushpile. Its title is an unrecognizable term in an unrecognizable language (unhispanized Tagalog). This unrecognizable language is consistently used throughout the manuscript and not translated, though this time around, there is no baybayin script to be found in my manuscript. The unrecognizable term is the manuscript’s premise.
Diwata’s literary references are not those of canonical or popularly consumed American literature, unless you consider Eduardo Galeano, Jessica Hagedorn, Leslie Marmon Silko, Tu Fu, and the Tagalog Creation Story of Malakas and Maganda among the canonical or popularly consumed American literary works, which they are not.
Among Diwata’s historical and social references and inferences are Lapu Lapu, the headhunting of the northern tribes, the Philippine American War and resistance figures such as Macario Sakay, USAFFE Filipino WWII veterans, the Japanese Occupation of the Philippines and the Bataan Death March, the Comfort Women, non-hipster SoMa and Mission District San Francisco, Manny Pacquiao. Familial references include a dedication to Tita Alice and Papa (Papa’s name is also quite a mouthful), a densely populated family tree, and then Lola Ilang. And then there is my use of Philippine and invented feminist mythologies. Perhaps the only reference readily familiar to intern slushpilers is the biblical Eve, and she’s not doing conventionally Eve things.
I say all these things not to rant, really. In rejecting the contest route, I am not rejecting editorial approval/affirmation. I believe in editorial process. I would simply prefer discerning and experienced editors (and I gauge these things based upon which poets and titles they have previously published) to read Diwata, which is currently in or will very soon be in some [unnamed editors'] good hands, safely outside of the contest route, and where the odds are maybe not guaranteed to be in my favor, but are markedly better than being the “ethnic” “political” “experimental” poet in a slushpile of thousands (thousands?) of conventional American English narrative poets.
And so regarding these unnamed editors with these unnamed independent publishers, let’s just say that my “shameless hussy-ing” is making this possible, though I don’t know how well it’s “working” until I receive the final word. I want to say that I feel like it’s close.
