Paul Robinson Poetry

Hours —maybe not hours but certainly numerous minutes— have been wasted mulling over poetry competitions and their validity. No doubt they have been a vehicle of discovery for the unknown  Makar — from time to time— but looking at the 2008 winners of the Bridport Poetry Prize and The Poetry Society National Poetry Competition, you begin to feel a distasteful sense of elitism. Naturally, all winners of the 2008 Bridport Prize(s) had been to University; two winners had been to Cambridge and Oxford Universities; and at least six hold postgraduate qualifications and various teaching posts. The jig is the same over at The Poetry Society, with both 2007 and 2008 winners displaying similar histories. Christopher James, winner of The Poetry Society National Poetry Competition 2008, “also won the Bridport (2002) and the Ledbury poetry prizes (2003 and 2006) and is also the recipient of an Eric Gregory from the Society of Authors.” Congratulations are certainly in order, but who is congratulating who? Welcome to the in-group bias of the poetry world.

I posted a short polemic entitled, ‘Abandon The Presses: Their Ship Has Already Sunk’ which pointed to, amongst other things, a sense of elitism in the literary presses tantamount to that seen in poetry competitions. A brief survey of certain online/offline poetry publications shows that the majority of contributors hold postgraduate qualifications and vocational qualifications of parity, and that editors deliberately hawk established, highly educated poets in order to buttress their reputation, even if the poet’s submission is below par. I have seen woeful evidence of this preferential treatment. Content therefore becomes contrary to the ‘mission statement’ supposedly encouraging new or unpublished poets to submit. Poetry competitions, evidenced in the brief example above, show a similar bias and organisers and judges should be lambasted for promoting exclusivity, even though they may try to fall back on that fallacious rule, ‘open to everyone’. They make every effort to distance themselves from the scurrilous vanity presses and publications, but it is they who seem to emerge as the main culprits. If they cannot liberate themselves from elitism, then the poetry competition becomes an unsound proposition.

Bloodaxe Books founder Neil Astley commented on this elitism in his 2006 New Statesman article, ‘Give Poetry Back to People‘ saying , “academic protectionism…is something that has also tainted poetry reviewing: the few reviews that do appear are mostly of books by the same small group of mostly male, white British poets who also judge the main poetry prizes and are often either poetry editors or academics in university departments of English or creative writing.”

Sour grapes on my part? To some extent, maybe, although I’ve never entered a poetry competition. As for submitting works to presses and publications, most certainly. Submitting work is a psychological web of desires, motivations and wants. An industry feeds off these human attributes, compelling us to toe guidelines, send cash and risk the post office. In the past, I’ve considered abandoning all submissions, but guided by ego, rescinded the decision. Oh, to see our names up in lights! But now the personal computer and the internet have changed all that. There is a power shift in effect.

Literary houses mystify literary works, they defend the mechanics of illusion, duping their authors in the process. We have the right to expression, do we really need recognition from those who have been unable to perforate a text? These soon to be outmoded -if they aren’t already and/or haven’t realised- literary entities clearly rely on monies to keep ticking, and some are noteworthy publications (the field begins to narrow), but the fact is the personal computer, for the moment anyway, is the new Gutenberg printing press. Poets (should) no longer require the patronage of a publisher nor the kudos of an imprint; recognition by peers in paper houses —or ivory towers— is one of the cogs powering the illusion, and likewise status. Some might argue that they separate the wheat from the chaff. I argue that the World Wide Web and its residents do that quite capably. If reader’s don’t like your work then they’ll go somewhere else. If you enjoy the creative arc of poetry, then you will keep writing. Let’s be outsiders and refuse to genuflect? I think we will see a dramatic shift in the way the poet is perceived, and the internet is the catalyst.

So I make a declaration: a refusal to submit, a refusal to enter competition. I’ll let my hair grow the way it pleases, the wind is my gel, the finishing touches applied by breezes.

Bewise Box:

Here be a list of supporting documents concerning elitism in poetry.

The Invitation-Only Party That Is Poetry Today by Robert Peake, 5th September 2006

Give Poetry Back to People by Neil Astley, New Statesman, 23 October 2006.

Fictionwise forced to impose geo-restrictions on ALREADY-bought book? Lit agents unwittingly promoting piracy? By David Rothman,  September 18th, 2009.   A looser but still recent,  intrinsic supporting document.

Professor Christopher Reid Wins 2010 Costa Poetry Award, Yorkshire Post, 04 January 2010.

PRobinson