On the writing contest cycle convo bandwagon

Late to the argument, relevant nonetheless:

Stacey Lynn Brown wrote a sobering tale on her blog about her disastrous experience with “winning” the cider press review contest. I won’t go into detail on it here, but click over and read it, then come back for my thoughts.

As you know I have been hosting my writing contest lists since about 2005 (on various blogs, PWADJ is the current iteration). On any given day, my poetry contest pages bring in about 50 hits. When you add it up, that’s 18,250 hits per year. Basically, A LOT. Poets enter contests because contests are the currently available avenue to being published.

…or are they?

I think the contest system idea – to gather potentially great manuscripts from unknown poets – might have been a good one back in 1993, but I’m not sure it fits with today’s rapidly changing shape of the poetry community. When I was graduating from college, the MFA “business” was not yet flourishing, and presses like BOA and Graywolf were ready to publish new and bourgeoning voices – not the usual suspects. So the contest system worked to bring them new poets.

Since then though, it seems you can’t swing a baby without hitting at least three MFAs in any metropilitan area, and disenchanted (or conversely, cutting edge) poets found micro presses as fast as stinging nettle on the California hillside propogates in a hot, dry summer.  The multitude of poets chomping at the bit for publication plus the ubiquitousness of these itty bitty presses is pretty much a recipe for disaster. The poetry “market” is in a bubble and trust me every bubble bursts. As is evidenced by Brown’s horror story.

Point blank, the contest system exists because it is an easy money-maker for the press. Period. It is not difficult to find great poetry. But it is difficult to find great money. So if anyone ever says the goal of a contest is to find great work, it’s either 1) a lie, or 2) at most a small subset of the ultimate goal of making money.

As a fundraiser, I know how hard it is to generate income. Generating income for poetry is infinitely more difficult because few people (outside of the poetry community) read it in general, and the century of benefactors to the arts is already 1.008 centuries over (poetry was never very high on that list, anyway). Many people in the general population don’t even think poetry is relevant anymore. This makes the donor pool for poetry infinitesimal. And thousands of presses are vying over money from that tiny pool.

Finally,  most of the poets I know would never think themselves (nor are they actually) in the position to make significant contributions to a press they like. Not only that but, philanthropy is an elusive concept for most people. If we did a survey of poets submitting to contests, I would bet that 9 times out of 10, if you asked them if they considered themselves a donor to the press where’re they’re submitting they’d say no. But in fact, your contest fee in most cases is a donation, tax deductible (many presses are non profit. I think all poetry presses should be). We don’t put two and two together: we somehow think the contest fee is like purchasing something – a chance in a lottery, perhaps – and so see it as transactional. And on top of that, if you asked these poets if they’d give that $35 to the press just to support it and get a chance to have their manuscript read in an open period, I bet they’d say no. There’s really no reason; we know we can afford it. But my gut tells me half the time poets submit, they don’t even like the press. They’re just carpet bombing and hoping something hits. Therefore, the contest continues to reign.

The worst part of all of this perhaps is that the contest preys upon the problematic ubiquitousness of the modern day poetry writer. There are a lot of poets out there right now who want to get published. 99% of them never will. 98% probably never should get published. The Contest System preys on that 98%.

Many of us who write poetry nowadays should probably keep our poetry to ourselves: in our circles, on our blogs. Many of us don’t realize this. Many refuse to believe it because it’s so mean, and harsh. Nevertheless it is the truth: not everyone should run for president. In fact, not even everyone who thinks they should run for president should run for president. Ditto for poets publishing their work.

The contest, however, loves the ubiquitousness of the modern day poetry writer, because in the current abusive cycle these are the poets they prey upon: ones that think “we have as good a chance as any” to get published – and these are the ones who never will. This does not make us failures, or bad people, nor even imply we shouldn’t write anymore. It just means we should stop trying so hard to get published in the current climate.

The other half of the problem is anyone who has never had their work published, or who hates everything that’s ever been published, or who thinks they’ve got the mainline on what’s great poetry nowadays, goes and founds a press. These kinds of presses have about as much business and editorial savvy as I would have experience running for president. Unfortunately, just because you are a poet doesn’t make you good at being an editor/publisher. You also need to be a CEO, fundraiser, business manager, and marketing and branding expert. 99% are not.

Ergo, The Contest as main revenue stream. These presses who force fees don’t do their fundraising, don’t manage their revenue streams appropriately, cry that “poetry doesn’t make money” and answer that cry with a $35 contest.

However, I know that presses can be successful without the paid contest cheat. Ausable’s model works, and the poetry they publish is amazing. So I implore presses to follow that model, do your work, and find good poets to publish.

And for poets: do your research thoughtfully. Don’t carpet bomb; it perpetuates the abusive system. Explore all avenues for getting your work out: contests, open reading periods, self publishing, local distribution of your homemade chapbooks by poetry readings. Decide which you will try first; if that shows no success, try the next. Don’t endlessly send out manuscripts to contests. It’s expensive, and futile. And most of all, understand the place for your work and don’t get caught up in “the business of poetry.” We write because we love to write and share our work. Not win a contest.

Tags: ausable press, cider press review, Contests, poetry, poetry contests, poets, stacey lynn brown, writing contests