Sherry Chandler

Tales of Foetry’s demise…

Thanks to that Exceptional Writer Jeff Hess for pointing out that tales of Foetry’s demise are premature. Says newly outed Alan Cordle:

It’s the biased and poorly researched article in the New York Times declaring a surrender. Reminds me of the Wicked Witch of the West flying through the sky, “Surrender Foetry.” You can thank Foets, Janet Holmes who has threatened me with legal action, and Jorie Graham, who said that I lied. Well, Foets, the site’s back up and I stand behind the information here.

The opposition is at whoisfoetry? and at Humanophone.

I stand sort of like Switzerland in this controversy – aggressively neutral. And I really didn’t want to express an opinion but—here I go with my Rodney King moment.

A famous poet once told me that contests are the way to get a poetry collection published, advice I will probably ignore. Although my first chapbook was published because I entered a contest I did not win, and I can understand why book publishers run contests – the market for poetry books is not huge – I tend to agree with those who argue that contests turn publishing into a lottery. Do I have an alternative? Other than passing a law that says each citizen must buy one poetry book a year, no.

I know on a very small scale that judging contests can present you with difficult choices – the community of poets is small and blinding is not always enough to keep you from recognizing the work of colleagues. And you can recognize that that work is far and away the best of the entries. Fortunately for me, I’ve nearly always judged as part of a team, so I had a built-in check of my perceptions (and the contests I’ve judged have been small and insignificant to all but the participants).

On the other hand, I don’t see the harm in shedding a little daylight on the process. Foetry is aggressive and offensive in approach – a little too “scorched earth” as The Reading Experience puts it – but I think I’m correct in stating that at least one publisher, Sarabande, decided to except former students of judges from their contests as a result of Foetry’s actions. That doesn’t really seem like a bad thing to me.

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