Competitions and 'previous winners'

[Stephen Whiteside]

I was very interested to read the letter by Jan Morris in the latest ABPA newsletter.

I thought she made a very good point. Why should poems that have previously won competitions not be eligible to win further competitions?

I can see there are two sides to the argument. Perhaps competition organisers like to feel they can 'unearth' a great poem that has not been seen before. On the other hand, they might also like to feel they can further consolidate the reputation of a particularly impressive poem.

While I acknowledge the analogy is not quite fair, it would be crazy if the winner of Wimbledon became ineligible for the US Open.

Imagine if one poem won the Blackened Billy, the Bronze Swagman, and perhaps the NSW and Queensland written comps (say) all in one year. Would that constitute a 'Grand Slam'?

[Vic Jefferies]

Stephen if a really good poem, I mean a ripper, won a major competition and was then eligible to be entered in other competitions you may end up with the same poem winning everything and thereby diminish the interest of other writers.
I am afraid this is what has happened in the performance competitions: the same people keep winning with the same poems and people wonder why the interest in competitions is waning.
I have not read Jan's article yet but well remember that one of the requirements of the Tamworth performance competition was that an entrant could not perform a poem that he/she had presented in previous years.

[Stephen Whiteside]

Sydney won the flag this year, so they can't win it next year?

May the best poem win...

Vic, if people are that easily put off competing, then perhaps the title (and the competition itself) isn't worth much anyway.

To my mind, this is the great strength of the Bush Laureates. They welcome all comers.

[Stephen Whiteside]

As you say, Marty, it is unlikely that one poem would would multiple comps over multiple years.

At least the AFL allows Sydney to use the same game plan if they want to.

I rather like the idea of a champion poem that nobody can beat. It might be just the thing needed to spark the public imagination and take bush poetry into the mainstream. Look at Black Caviar...

[Stephen Whiteside]

Another thought: Under the current system, we tend to become very familiar with the names of the winning poets, but not so much with their poems. They tend to keep winning with different poems, so we read their names over and over, but might read the titles of each of their poems only a couple of times. We know the poets better than their poems.

Yet if the same poems could be entered over and over, the names of the poems rather than the poets might stick in the mind - and after all, competitions are about poems, not poets.

Eventually, you are going to reach a point where you say, "Wow, that poem has now won twelve comps (or whatever). It must be a pretty incredible poem." You are probably going to want to check that poem out. Under the current system, no individual poem can reach that level of prestige, regardless of how good it is.

[Neville Briggs]

Very good point Stephen.

[warooa]

Great food for thought - I've just written a poem about Black Caviar joining the Sydney Swans (and they thought Lewis Jetta was quite around the wing).

[Mal McLean]

Thinking......out loud as it were.

One of the problems might be that Judges would know the poem and therefore who the poet is and this might be a worry if say, a judge (s) had a personal like or dislike of the poet in either a personal or an artistic sense. I don't know, but the anonymity of the poet and I suppose the Judge(s) could be compromised.

?

Mal

[Stephen Whiteside]

That may be so, Mal, but there are still many literary awards that function this way. There is nothing anonymous about the Bush Laureate Awards. A book that has won the Premier's or Prime Minister's Prize can still win the Miles Franklin, and then go on to win the Booker. By their very nature, performance awards are also not anonymous.

[Mal McLean]

Yes. Point taken Stephen.

Mal