Poetry Judges

Last year Wendy Cope was the Bridport poetry judge. This year it's Liz Lochhead. I detect a trend.

The Leeds Piano competition isn't judged by Jazz pianists. There's a wide enough range as it is, without introducing further complications. Indeed, I'd be surprized if there were a worthwhile competition anywhere that Classical and Jazz pianists could both enter. But also I doubt that a judge would be chosen who only plays Mozart. Poetry judges have to cope with a range of poetry styles far exceeding that of the Leeds Piano competition. They won't be equally appreciative of all types, and practitioners might be expected to have more biases than outsiders have. Indeed (as in Art with some Turner prize entrants, and in Music with Schoenberg, Glass, etc) they may have trouble accepting that an entry qualifies as a creative work at all, let alone a good one.

So what features should a judge have?

• Able to evaluate a poem, whatever its type - This is so infeasible an objective that competition organisers probably don't bother too much about fulfilling it. It's clearly not the highest priority.
• Able to attract entries for the current competition - Crucial. A practising poet (or famous non-poet) is much more useful than an experienced anthologist or teacher. The judge may even be in a position to promote the event
• Able to attract entries for future competitions - Important. The person's judgement shouldn't attract adverse criticism. Competitions want to attract regular clientele, and organisers certainly don't want people demanding their money back because the winning entry "wasn't a poem".
• Availability - Judging the Bridport consumes much time at a point in the year when some of the best candidates won't have time to spare

Editors of major magazines might be considered well placed to be judges, you'd have thought. Their well-calibrated sensibilities should be immune to the tricks of the trade. Essay and text-book writers might be good candidates too. But unless they're also poets, they don't usually have a chance. Judgement by committee might broaden the aesthetics, so why not pair up Liz Lochhead with (say) Keston Sutherland? Well, for a start it's more expensive to have multiple judges, and it's not a risk-free option -

• In Bad Poem, Fergus McFadden queries the success of the Andrew Motion and Gillian Clarke pairing in judging the 2013 Cardiff International Poetry competition (first prize 5000 pounds). His views were shared by several poets I know. In any case, why have 2 poets who are so similar?
• In a 1990s Stand Poetry competition, judges Denise Riley and Ken Smith couldn't agree on a list of winners so each chose their own list
• "When we were judging [The Booker] we tried three different voting systems and each time a different winner emerged", Rowan Pelling, the Observer, March 9, 2008

So why has the Bridport committee chosen Liz Lochhead? I presume because last year was a financial success. I don't doubt her ability to select a winning poem that's good of its type. However, I think there are aspects of my poetry that she might not take into account, and at 8 quid a shot it's not worth the gamble.

Competition poems

Few poets earn much from their poetry books, so they might as well get money from their poems first. The National Poetry Competition, Bridport prize and Cardiff competition all have 5000 pound first prizes. You might expect the famous poets to make a killing. Jo Shapcott has indeed won the National Poetry Competition twice, but as often as not relative unknowns win. Are famous poets richer than we thought (not bothering to enter competitions), or does the level playing field of anonymity cut them down to size?

There are several reasons why a worthy poem might not win a prize.

• There's not only more subjectivity in poetry judging, but there are types of poetry that judges may well not understand let alone like
• Poetry has many one-hit wonders. What distinguishes famous poets from the also-rans might be the quantity of decent poems they produce rather than the quality of their best poems.
• The qualities required of a poem to get noticed amongst thousands of others may not be those that are highly regarded in other situations.
• The judging-by-committee nature of competitions discourages innovation.

My guess is that judges (who are often well paid) will want to judge again, so they don't want to stir up controversy (especially from competitors who think they've been hard done by - the competition organisers want people to enter in future years). They'll play safe with the prizewinners, putting the odd non-standard piece amongst the minor prizes to encourage non-mainstreamers to submit again.

Is it worth researching the judge? Though you shouldn't assume that poets only like the sort of poetry they like themselves, if you write like Jorie Graham, Bob Dylan, or in tight verse forms you might like to check whether your style lands on a judge's blind-spot.

Here are some quotes about competitions -

• According to Rialto (Summer 2012) the 1951 National Poetry Competition attracted over 1500 entries, 1300 of which had no literary merit according to the judges. Only 7 poems were thought to be publishable.
• I once wrote "Winning competitions can be like applying for a job. The first stage is more to do with avoiding errors in order to get in the short-list. The second stage is where depth is revealed". The need to get through the first stage may compromise the poem, but the requirement of the 2nd stage may also be a problem.
• In Assent 65/2 D.A.Prince has a review of Robert Seatter's "Writing King Kong" in which she says "He's left behind much of the excitable display of virtuosity characterising his first collection, with its reassuring basketful of competition winners, and built on the strengths of his second book to produce a relatively quieter collection, more secure and confident. It's as though he no longer needs the morale-boosting success in competitions; he has reached his mature style, and has the assurance to trust his own instincts as to what works best in fitting these poems together"
• "A 'competition poem' is different. It has to stand on its own feet. It can have no relation to the poet’s other work because the judges don’t know who the poet is. The poet has to believe that this poem is worth thousands of pounds, and because of that the poem has to be not only well-crafted and original, it also has to be startling" (Kurt Heinzelman and Ian McMillan, 2009 Cardiff International Poetry Competition)
• "When we were judging [The Booker] we tried three different voting systems and each time a different winner emerged", Rowan Pelling, the Observer, March 9, 2008
• When Stand ran a poetry competition in 1995 with 2 judges, the judges didn't agree with or respect each others opinion, so there were 2 lists of prizewinners.
• "We felt that the main prizewinners should touch on ... the big issues of death and love", Matthew Sweeney, New Welsh Review, No. 40.

and here are some related resources

• On poetry pf's home page there are links to competition results and judge's results
• On National Poetry Competition Discussion points (2011 winning poems) there are the winners of the UK's biggest competition with some comments
• Poetry Prize Culture and the Aberdeen Angus (Peter Riley)
• See Helena Nelson's write-up of how she judged

Which competitions are worth entering nowadays?

I don't think that the UK has quite the same competition culture as the USA, but we're catching up. Here's how I decide which competitions to enter

I look at the fee/prize ratio when I enter competitions, and try to see where the money's going. I take into account the prestige of the competition, the judge, and the judging process. I only bother with poem competitions where the 1st prize is more than 100 times the fee. I'm more lenient with story competitions.

We're beginning to have magazines that charge reading fees, which is essentially a competition. I think that's fair enough for prose, especially if the fee includes a copy of the magazine.

We have a few (far fewer than the USA) competitions where the winner's book is published. I'm sympathetic to the established ones - they offer one of the few routes to publication; faster and much less hassle than submitting to publishers.

For the bigger UK competitions (Bridport, National Poetry Competition) not only is the fee/prize ratio good (Bridport's poetry/story 1st prize is 5000 pounds for a 6 or 7 pound fee; the Flash prize is 1000 pounds for a 5 pound fee), but the lesser prizes are worthwhile too. Getting on the short-list is noteworthy, and there's a good chance of anthology/newspaper publication later.

After a bit of naming-and-shaming a few years ago in the UK there's been a trend towards transparency of the judging process. For example, the Bridport rules say "Experienced readers assist the named judges in selecting the shortlists, headed by Jon Wyatt for short stories and Candy Neubert for poems". In the National Poetry Competition's FAQ they say "Unlike many poetry competitions, we do not implement a sifting / elimination round. Each entry is seen by at least two of the judges."

So I end up entering a big competition every year or 2. I enter a publication-prize competition every 2 or 3 years. I enter about 8 small competitions a year - more prose than poetry. I guess I've come out about even overall, and I feel I've helped out some worthwhile magazines and organisations.

Short-list or short straw?

Two disappointments this week. I was runner-up in the purple moose poetry pamphlet competition and on the short-list (but not a prizewinner) in the Frome short story competition. Oh well. Better to have loved and lost I suppose, but sometimes I think I'd rather go unnoticed than appear on a short-list only to have hopes dashed.

The disadvantages aren't just psychological. Sometimes in competitions the short-listed pieces are published. When (as in the Bristol short story competition or the Templar poetry pamphlet competition) the result is a well produced book, that's good news, but some other competitions just produce a pamphlet or put the pieces online. I think I'd rather send a good poem somewhere else than have it appear on the web. I've already sent my Frome entry elsewhere.

For some competitions (the Bridport Prizes and the Forward Poetry awards, for example) being on the short-list is a reward in its own right, something to mention on a book cover. Publishing "long-lists" dozens of entries long has become fashionable. I suppose they increase interest generally, but they don't interest me. There are publicity merits of being on the Frank O'Connor short story book award long-list, but prospective buyers might not realise that "All eligible titles constitute the long-list, which is read by the jury".