Poetry News For August 26, 2008
Poetry News:
- — Sharon Olds: ‘I’ve tried to make sense of my life … make a small embodiment of ordinary life, from a daughter’s, wife’s, mother’s point of view’ —
- — From terror to relief, humour to grief, death may be a black subject, but is one of the richest seams of inspiration to poets, and you simply can’t avoid it… —
- — Traveling Poetry Hut
— - — Tibet’s most famous woman blogger, Woeser, detained by police —
- — Decatur Book Fest: Billy Collins is a sellout —
- — There are certain notions about poetry that must apparently always automatically spring to mind. I’ve decided to start a list of them here. —
- — Cheap & ridiculous poetry messages hurting fans —
- — Jane Crown’s poetry radio invites poets,novelists and small press publishers to interview on their craft —
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One of the editors of Cider Press — Robert Wynne — has responded to (what appears to be) unethical behavior regarding their Cider Press Review Book Award. And Stacey Lynn Brown’s rebuttal. (I’ve read that Pavement Saw Press’ contest has been problematic. And did you know that there was no winner chosen this year for the Cave Canem Poetry Prize?)
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Every year, there are thousands upon thousands of poets contributing money into contests. In many cases each poet is spending hundreds and sometimes over a thousand dollars a year doing this. If we do a very conservative estimate that there are 4000 poets a year spending $250 (that would be roughly 5-6 contests and doesn’t include postage) a year — that’s a million dollars into this contest system.
— read the rest and take the Take the “Are Poetry Contests Killing Your Soul?” Quiz
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Game Show Vs. Riefenstahl. There are better (?) pictures:
Come On Down! — XXXOOO Love, Leni.
ps. Looking at the DNC pics also makes me hear rows of slot machines in my head. There needs to be a Harley in the background, rotating slowly on a turntable platform, surrounded by a bank of slot machines.
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I’m one of the authors in the Decatur Festival and even I couldn’t get a ticket. Oh, well…I’ve seen him a couple times now.
Wynne’s rebuttal to Stacey is pathetic and answers none of the charges leveled at CPR. It’s a “save-face” maneuver.
. . . most of the comments responding to Brown’s Cider Press story on her site are commiserating with her, and saluting her bravery in exposing this nonsense——
but none are slamming his honor the Hoagland who bops in to these contests and does his ten minute stint as “judge” and then scoots off with another tick on his resume, another notch on his reputation, who doesn’t give a damn if it’s a scam, he doesn’t care if the process is fair and the press treats its poets properly, all he cares about is cashing that fee and that boost to his ego . . .
Hoagland is a Po-Biz whore who will obviously sell his ass out as a “judge” at every opportunity legitimate or ill- . . .
if you’re going to condemn the presses, you must also censure the “judges” of these contests: they’re part of the scam . . . they don’t give a damn about what happens after they take their money and run . . . Hoagland is as much to blame here as Cider is.