from Inside Higher Education
http://insidehighered.com/insider/poets_v_u_of_iowa_press
Poets v. U. of Iowa Press
The University of Iowa is known for its Writers' Workshop, so it's no surprise that the University of Iowa Press builds on that literary reputation with annual prizes for poetry and short fiction.
In recent weeks, an anonymous Web site has begun a campaign against the press, arguing that it favors entries with connections to the university. The Web site, Foetry, calls itself "the poetry watchdog" and boasts of its role "exposing the fraudulent 'contests,' tracking the sycophants, naming names."
The Web site is urging poets to send letters to consumer advocates, state officials and the university's president, and to lawyers who might help with a class action lawsuit (based on Foetry's view that participants are duped into paying the $20 entry fee, unaware that they may have little chance of winning if they don't have Iowa ties).
At the Iowa Press, officials are astonished to find themselves under attack by an army of poets and poetry fans -- most of them anonymous.
"It's hard to have a useful dialogue with an anonymous Web site," said Holly Carver, director of the press. She noted that Iowa's contests are "blind," meaning that names, affiliations, dedications and other identifying facts are removed before judging. "It's just a little hard to say how our contest could be more democratic than it already is."
Actually, Foetry and its readers have plenty of ideas about that. The Web site has criticized other poetry contests -- many of them sponsored by universities and their presses -- for similar reasons. But the Iowa attack, perhaps because of the prominence of its writing program, has really taken off.
The 2004 winners of Iowa's poetry contest were Megan Johnson, who has an MFA from the Writers' Workshop, and Susan Wheeler, who has taught at Iowa. The Foetry Web site also lists many past winners with Iowa connections, and it didn't help matters much when the Iowa Press recently announced the winners of its annual short fiction contest, who also had Iowa ties.
So for many Foetry readers, the obvious answer is for Iowa to bar its alumni and current or former employees from entering. And these readers are not shy about expressing their feelings.
"You ought to be ashamed of yourselves, to perpetrate a fraud on aspiring poets, and hide under your university umbrella to lure unsuspecting people into your web of deceit. Any respectable contest bars employees, including former employees," wrote one, who added that he views Iowa's award as "a fixed contest that is really just a mutual admiration society for a tiny clique."
Another comment on the Foetry site responds to Carver's statements about the contest being blind. "Dear Holly Carver," the person wrote. "Removing names and acknowledgments pages isn't enough, and you know it. If a teacher has helped to shape a friend's poems, do you think they need a name to recognize them? You are so busted. Cold-busted."
And yet another said: "The more I read about this stuff, the more I feel I exist in some weird parallel universe. How on earth have we gotten to this point, where people pay to have their envelopes opened by some anonymous graduate student, and all that cash then funds a judge picking his or her drinking buddy, lover, colleague or former student? It's simply perverse."
Carver says that there is a perfectly legitimate reason why so many people with Iowa connections with the contests: Iowa attracts great writers. "The workshop is one of the premiere writing programs in the country and over the years its graduates have gone on to become influences on their campuses, and there is a huge diaspora, a stellar one," she says.
She said the controversy "is a real shame -- it's a shame that with the economics of poetry so marginal, something as noble as publishing good poetry has come under attack."
So who created Foetry? In an e-mail interview, the site's founder would say little about himself except that he's a male academic. Asked if he had any particular grudge with Iowa or writing contests, he said that he never applied to the Writers' Workshop and that his concern is simply with "ethical behavior."
He offered this message (and warning) for poets: "Contemporary poets should strive to have their work recognized for its quality and not because they slept with a famous poet at a writing conference or gushed to their professor who then bestowed a prize. That is poetry that will be forever tainted.... If you know the judge of a particular contest, enter a different one. If you are the judge and you recognize a friend's work, recuse yourself. You will not do them a favor to choose their writing. After all, they will just end up on our site."
The Iowa Press has plenty of defenders. Poetry blogs debating the Foetry charges appear divided. And other contest officials say that Foetry makes unfair accusations. Janet Holmes of Boise State University writes on the literary Web site Moby Lives that Foetry "is entirely anonymous" so "its pretense to 'naming names' is particularly ludicrous."
The Foetry founder says that staying anonymous is essential for him and many of his contributors. "We are anonymous because there is already so much unfairness in publishing poetry. This site has named people who make major publishing decisions and they would retaliate," he wrote.
Tree Swenson, executive director of the Academy of American Poets, says of Foetry: "I think it's great that somebody is out there monitoring the ethics and procedures" of contests, and she said sponsors of awards "should always be on guard" against conflicts of interest.
But she adds, "The problem is that if you really start looking at what constitutes conflict of interest, it can become a paranoid endeavor. The world of poetry is a fairly small world and a lot of people know many poets and people become friends with people whose work they admire, so this is really delicate territory."
A policy of banning alumni of a program may be easier said than done, she said. "If you say no awards can be given to students, does that mean someone who was in a summer workshop 12 years ago, they are forever ineligible? It's not a black and white issue. it never is. It's complex -- like poetry."
— Scott Jaschik
http://insidehighered.com/insider/poets_v_u_of_iowa_press
Poets v. U. of Iowa Press
The University of Iowa is known for its Writers' Workshop, so it's no surprise that the University of Iowa Press builds on that literary reputation with annual prizes for poetry and short fiction.
In recent weeks, an anonymous Web site has begun a campaign against the press, arguing that it favors entries with connections to the university. The Web site, Foetry, calls itself "the poetry watchdog" and boasts of its role "exposing the fraudulent 'contests,' tracking the sycophants, naming names."
The Web site is urging poets to send letters to consumer advocates, state officials and the university's president, and to lawyers who might help with a class action lawsuit (based on Foetry's view that participants are duped into paying the $20 entry fee, unaware that they may have little chance of winning if they don't have Iowa ties).
At the Iowa Press, officials are astonished to find themselves under attack by an army of poets and poetry fans -- most of them anonymous.
"It's hard to have a useful dialogue with an anonymous Web site," said Holly Carver, director of the press. She noted that Iowa's contests are "blind," meaning that names, affiliations, dedications and other identifying facts are removed before judging. "It's just a little hard to say how our contest could be more democratic than it already is."
Actually, Foetry and its readers have plenty of ideas about that. The Web site has criticized other poetry contests -- many of them sponsored by universities and their presses -- for similar reasons. But the Iowa attack, perhaps because of the prominence of its writing program, has really taken off.
The 2004 winners of Iowa's poetry contest were Megan Johnson, who has an MFA from the Writers' Workshop, and Susan Wheeler, who has taught at Iowa. The Foetry Web site also lists many past winners with Iowa connections, and it didn't help matters much when the Iowa Press recently announced the winners of its annual short fiction contest, who also had Iowa ties.
So for many Foetry readers, the obvious answer is for Iowa to bar its alumni and current or former employees from entering. And these readers are not shy about expressing their feelings.
"You ought to be ashamed of yourselves, to perpetrate a fraud on aspiring poets, and hide under your university umbrella to lure unsuspecting people into your web of deceit. Any respectable contest bars employees, including former employees," wrote one, who added that he views Iowa's award as "a fixed contest that is really just a mutual admiration society for a tiny clique."
Another comment on the Foetry site responds to Carver's statements about the contest being blind. "Dear Holly Carver," the person wrote. "Removing names and acknowledgments pages isn't enough, and you know it. If a teacher has helped to shape a friend's poems, do you think they need a name to recognize them? You are so busted. Cold-busted."
And yet another said: "The more I read about this stuff, the more I feel I exist in some weird parallel universe. How on earth have we gotten to this point, where people pay to have their envelopes opened by some anonymous graduate student, and all that cash then funds a judge picking his or her drinking buddy, lover, colleague or former student? It's simply perverse."
Carver says that there is a perfectly legitimate reason why so many people with Iowa connections with the contests: Iowa attracts great writers. "The workshop is one of the premiere writing programs in the country and over the years its graduates have gone on to become influences on their campuses, and there is a huge diaspora, a stellar one," she says.
She said the controversy "is a real shame -- it's a shame that with the economics of poetry so marginal, something as noble as publishing good poetry has come under attack."
So who created Foetry? In an e-mail interview, the site's founder would say little about himself except that he's a male academic. Asked if he had any particular grudge with Iowa or writing contests, he said that he never applied to the Writers' Workshop and that his concern is simply with "ethical behavior."
He offered this message (and warning) for poets: "Contemporary poets should strive to have their work recognized for its quality and not because they slept with a famous poet at a writing conference or gushed to their professor who then bestowed a prize. That is poetry that will be forever tainted.... If you know the judge of a particular contest, enter a different one. If you are the judge and you recognize a friend's work, recuse yourself. You will not do them a favor to choose their writing. After all, they will just end up on our site."
The Iowa Press has plenty of defenders. Poetry blogs debating the Foetry charges appear divided. And other contest officials say that Foetry makes unfair accusations. Janet Holmes of Boise State University writes on the literary Web site Moby Lives that Foetry "is entirely anonymous" so "its pretense to 'naming names' is particularly ludicrous."
The Foetry founder says that staying anonymous is essential for him and many of his contributors. "We are anonymous because there is already so much unfairness in publishing poetry. This site has named people who make major publishing decisions and they would retaliate," he wrote.
Tree Swenson, executive director of the Academy of American Poets, says of Foetry: "I think it's great that somebody is out there monitoring the ethics and procedures" of contests, and she said sponsors of awards "should always be on guard" against conflicts of interest.
But she adds, "The problem is that if you really start looking at what constitutes conflict of interest, it can become a paranoid endeavor. The world of poetry is a fairly small world and a lot of people know many poets and people become friends with people whose work they admire, so this is really delicate territory."
A policy of banning alumni of a program may be easier said than done, she said. "If you say no awards can be given to students, does that mean someone who was in a summer workshop 12 years ago, they are forever ineligible? It's not a black and white issue. it never is. It's complex -- like poetry."
— Scott Jaschik
