When can a book that isn’t released yet get an award for being released last year? Why, when it’s a poetry book by a Dickman brother, that’s when.
People send me crazy stuff. Like, Masonic conspiracy, None Dare Call It Conspiracy-type stuff.
The Dickman brothers are kinda famous as poets go. They’re twins, you see, which is a novelty; they write decent enough poems in that O’Hara-in-the-suburbs-type mode; they are nice people, from what I hear. Let me clarify that last point: this past January, when I was out in Portland on my Public Failure Book Tour, the subject of hometown heroes The Dickmans came up several times, and before the subject of their amazing ride to fame could even be broached–by myself and others, before said subject could be established as positive, negative, or neither–in each instance, someone stopped us from pursuing the conversation further.
“I know Michael/Matthew,” one would say in hushed tones, one hand out in a “Stop In The Name of Love” position. I knew they had, like, networking mojo in Poetryland, but I’d never experienced a stop-gossip vibe in such a way ever before. Why be poets if we can’t gossip and playa-hate? Jesus, where is the fun anymore? Does anybody remember the laughter? So let’s just say they’re nice people.
Anyway, last night I got two emails, both about the recent announcement about one Dickman, the Michael one, winning the 2010 James Laughlin Award. To be truthful, when I notice who wins these kinds of awards these days in Poetryland, I’m never surprised. It’s usually, like, Matthea Harvey or Noah Eli Gordon or Major Jackson. Those are the ones I always notice, anyway, because I have met all of them. Those three are nice people; I think they should get paid-in-full. Those three are thinking of a master plan better than this G, so let them get the money.
But then I get still another two emails that remind me that the Laughlin Award “gives $5,000 to the most outstanding second book by an American poet in the previous year.“ I got a fake movie poster, and so a blog post was born. (That’s how it works, people. It’s the people-talking-openly kinda world we live in, so let’s deal with it.)
Why was that phrase, the previous year, in bold, you may ask? Seems someone thought it odd that a book that isn’t even on the publisher’s website yet would get an award for being released last year. A closer look, however, seems everyone and everything was legit; a book is eligible, and I quote, if said book
[comes] under contract with a United States publisher between May 1, 2010, and April 30, 2011. Submissions are welcome from small presses, university presses, and trade publishers that have previously published at least four volumes of poetry.
“Could a book go back in time and win an award?” one informant emails me, asking me to “blog about it.”
What is it about me that drives people to send me this stuff? Have I been added to the Poetryland Freak Scene mailing list?
I mean, I know Poetryland, insofar as the awards and organizations and mafia soul kisses are concerned, is perceived to be a completely closed set, a gated community with keys available to only those who occupy the surrounding houses, and they don’t answer the door. But still. Maybe the practical take-home for the Academy Society runner-of-contest people is that they should fix their blurb in their announcements about it being from “previous year.” Or something.
My take: a Dickman would have won this award or some other at some point anyway, so we might as well get it over with.
The poster’s pretty funny, in any case.
I’m thinking your informants need to work on their reading comprehension, because the rules specifically state that the entries must be submitted as manuscripts/proofs and, as you said, simply be under contract, not actually published, during the prize year. The whole point, of course, is that the publisher then gets to put “WINNER OF THE JAMES BLAH BLAH” on the cover when the book is actually published. If the book has already been published, the book just gets a “WINNER OF THE BLAH BLAH PRIZE BLAH” sticker.
Seriously, this stuff is all spelled out here: http://www.poets.org/page.php/prmID/118
Now if the rules CHANGED this year to include all of the above, you’d have something to investigate.
Yeah. I think it’s odd that such scrutiny happens in things like this, but not, say, for matters that are really important.
But the point of the post is that such scrutiny and playa-hating happens, it will happen, and people will talk. This whole culture has changed into a two-way conversation, so we get to speak up, no matter how ill- or half-informed.
[comes] under contract with a United States publisher between May 1, 2010, and April 30, 2011. Submissions are welcome from small presses, university presses, and trade publishers that have previously published at least four volumes of poetry.
A small thing. I presume the Dickman book was submitted between between May 1, 2009, and April 30, 2010. Because if a Dickman can win now in 2010 for an award still taking submissions between May 1, 2010, and April 30, 2011, then said Dickman not only has powers to go into the past, but also to rule the realm of the future. Poetry? It’s like magic.
Is that true? Wow.
I think part of the real issue here is how writers and their concentric circles of editors, publishers, etc., have to go through flaming hoops of bs to get people to pay attention. Short-handers. Like: This award was granted, therefore you should recognize the book as “good,” or at least “pre-approved” and buy it or talk about it or both, and I who awarded the award would rather give it to someone who is already recognized, because this will by default, turn back around and “recognize” the award itself, its organization, and its principals. Now, yes, it is true that great writers also get recognized, created great and interesting work, and continue to produce and get recognized for it. But feedback loops do exist. People shore up their bets, buy insurance policies on the choices they’ve made and award the already-awarded time and again. It happens.
But as writers, why do we continue to care? The alternative would maybe be some kind of grant system. Every writer gets $19. No more, no less.
Is that what we want?
To stop caring would be hilarious, I guess. Or perhaps those who start getting awards could turn around and split the purse up, then create like 4 new awards from the award money, and give it all away.
It’s just money. And a little bit of attention. Right? Or is it more? Or is it only “more” and also “important” and “meaningful” because we all tacitly or otherwise agree that it is? Remember, “money” is really just well-designed (some would argue otherwise) paper.
I think it’s somewhere in between. In my time as a writer, I have seen the top-down model of prestige and publication upended, to the point where awards like this, and caring about them, seem like some throwback to another era. There are too many other ways to get one’s work out there, to get them to care, and, most importantly, to make connections. Awards are nice; it took my old shrink and me, like, three appointments to conclude I crave approval. But playa-hating when someone else succeeds is a fact of life. What makes matter less than cut-and-dry is all the protestation and conspiracy-mongering is rooted in some truth, some version of the truth: that people do pick favorites, that knowing the right people does make a difference, and working the system interpersonally and in the public sphere does pay off if done right and other elements are in place. What is interesting to me, and what has changed in the last couple of years, is how open about how public many of us are about these recriminations. To a large degree I think it’s inevitable, given the tools we have at our disposal to make our views known; what hasn’t been codified, or figured out, is how responsible we can make ourselves with those tools and opinions. And that, I’d like to think, is what this post is about. Plus it was a funny poster.
Daniel,
I wish you were gay and a chubby chaser, I’d be in Paradise.
Steve Fellner
I am a chubby bear. Doesn’t that count for anything? Best, Dan