Publish and be damned!

[David Campbell]

I’ve just written to another competition organiser about this issue, so thought it was worth going over the reason for my irritation once again here.

This is the question: why are competition organisers increasingly making it more and more difficult for us to submit entries?

The issue of publication is the main problem. We’ve discussed it before, in particular the fact that poets are reluctant to post poems for comment and discussion because it rules them out of those written competitions that won’t allow entries that have appeared on websites. So either you don’t post the poems or you avoid those competitions.

But it goes much wider than that. Let’s follow the logic, starting with one competition, the Bronze Swagman. In 2011 there were 42 poems published in the Swagman anthology, 37 of which didn’t win any sort of award. So any competition this year that banned poems that had been published in any way, shape or form, was excluding all 37 of those poems. Where is the upside of this? It’s a hell of a lot of potential lost income, and the poets concerned have to hunt around for competitions that do allow previously published material.

Add in poems that might have appeared in local anthologies or on websites, and those competitions with highly restrictive publication rules are cutting out a significant source of entries. Then the organisers will sit around afterwards and wonder why their income is down, so they’ll increase the entry fees for next year, thus discouraging even more people. It’s crazy!

There seems to be an assumption that there’s an unlimited number of poets and poems out here, so that there’s a steady supply of new work being produced exclusively for their competition. Because that’s pretty much the reality…they only want poems that have been specifically written for them. Some of them want it both ways…they want the right to publish, but won’t accept anything that’s been published elsewhere, no matter how insignificant the level of publication.

But as more and more competitions expect the same thing, they’ll battle for a dwindling number of poems. So some will collapse because they can’t attract enough entries.

I’m still of the opinion, expressed here before, that rules should only ban poems that have been published for the financial gain of the author. That’s it. End of story. So poems from the ABPA website should be eligible, and so should those 37 poems from the Swagman anthology. Organisers have got to think beyond their own competitions and start considering the health of bush poetry in general. It simply defies common sense to keep building higher and higher walls around competitions while simultaneously exhorting people to submit entries.

Or am I missing something?

Cheers
David

[Neville Briggs]

I assume that competition organisers are striving to maintain and appear to maintain, the old level playing field.

There seems to be an assumption that there’s an unlimited number of poets and poems out here, so that there’s a steady supply of new work being produced exclusively for their competition

An interesting point. Thinking on this, I wondered if there are too many competitions, that the " industry " of bush poetry competitions is , as they say, unsustainable.

[Bob Pacey]

Here here david I'm with you.


Same as you I feel that published for financial gain should be enough.


I also feel that a regular change of judges for such events is required as well.

Bob

[Terry]

I couldn't agree more with you David.

I think it's ridiculous, I'd sooner share a poem with friends if that's the choice.

Through no fault of it's own, or the hard working people who make this forum work, I believe the forum has gone backwards because of this rule.

Terry

[keats]

All very good points. Perhaps a combination of ideas. Do not enter and starve those comps of quality entries, but give feedback to them as to why you are not entering and hopefully the message will get through. $50 to $150 prize money we often see is very poor compensation for the limitations and restrictions they often wish to place on our intellectual property. But as mentioned, we have a choice.

Cheers

Neil

[Stephen Whiteside]

Thank God for the Bush Laureate awards! Interesting, though, that there is only one competition for published poems, and any number for unpublished. I like the way the ABLA also judges production values. I'd like to see more of that.

Sounds like a job for the ABPA, David. Perhaps the leadership should be encouraged to specifically lobby a few of the most prestigious comps. Perhaps if some changed, others would follow.

At the end of the day, of course, the problem is that the competition scene essentially consists of small groups of individuals acting with goodwill, but in complete isolation of each other, so that only the poets themselves are able to see the 'big picture'.

[Zondrae]

David,

I couldn't agree more.

Having had exactly the incident you cited happen to me, I know how frustrating it can be. The poem in Question was published in the BS Anthology and therefore I couldn't (or rather, didn't) enter it in any other competition. It had not won a prize and you get nothing back from the anthology so I felt right regally ripped off. But that was a few years back now and I have learned that you have to roll with the punches in this game. It is still a great poem and one I constantly get requests to recite.

In the meantime I have had poems published in the BS Anthology for four year in a row, two of which were Highly Commended. I'll keep writing a poem to send in each year because it is good discipline. Each year I have to search for a suitable idea that might fit the 'Bush' aspect. That reminds me......

[Stephen Whiteside]

Unfortunate initials aren't they, Zondrae. Rather distracting.

[David Campbell]

Thanks to all for the responses. They lead to some further thoughts. I agree with Neil…I don’t think the answer is to boycott those competitions with highly restrictive rules, but rather to persuade them to change their approach. For, in answer to Neville, I'm not so sure there are too many bush poetry competitions…in fact, it’s arguably the opposite. There aren’t enough.

Competitions, particularly if associated with festivals, promote local interest and are extremely useful for getting school children involved. But we seem to be losing competitions rather than gaining. If I look back five or six years there are a number of comps which aren’t around these days. Here in Victoria, for example, we’ve lost the Gippsland Wattle, which was sponsored by Australia Post and had a first prize of $1000.

It might seem an odd comparison, but I’ll use tennis as an analogy. I grew up playing tennis and continued doing so until just recently. Twenty five years ago we had two local suburban competitions, each with numerous sections, and my club had a host of teams. It was a battle to get selected, and court space was greatly in demand on weekends. Now there’s only one competition, with a mere handful of sections, and it’s a struggle to find players. What happened? Basically, the 20-40 age-group, the lifeblood of clubs, went off to do other things, often having to work on weekends. Clubs were hollowed out. Now there are lots of enthusiastic kids being coached, and a very active group of over-60s…but there’s hardly anyone in between. Clubs are disappearing as a result, and I could fire a cannon down my local courts on a sunny Sunday and not hit anyone.

Written competitions are part of the public face of bush poetry, and we want as many of them as possible to be strong and active, encouraging participation rather than turning quality entries away just because they’ve been published in an anthology, a magazine, a local newspaper, or on a website. We’ve got to get work out there, where it can be seen and appreciated, and hopefully attract new interest. There’s a lot of effort being put into schools, but we need the next generation of bush poets, those in the 20-40 age group to get involved. What’s the average age of ABPA members? Or of those on this site? My guess is it’s well over 50. There’s a discussion about retirement on another thread at this very moment.

I don’t think it’s so much too many competitions as too few people writing. Competition organisers can ill-afford to be putting potential entrants off with overly restrictive rules about publication. It’s a double-whammy. It makes poets wary about where they publish poems and it risks making the competitions themselves less viable.

On a positive note, there are a couple of competitions coming up with good rules. Irene’s Cervantes comp. will accept previously published poetry as long as it hasn’t won a first prize. And Tamworth’s Blackened Billy is open to poems that haven’t won a first, second or third, or been published “for the monetary gain of the author”. Support them!

Cheers
David

[Heather]

The Henry Lawson comp at Gulgong also allows published material to be entered.

I'm wary of where i enter my poetry because I don't want other organisations using my poems for their gain. I object to the prospect of a poem getting a mention in a comp and then being used in an anthology for which I then have to pay for. I won't enter.

It would also be good if the various groups that ran the competitions had the same criteria - some allow poems to be published, some specify they cannot be on a web site - others allow it. Some say it can't have won anything, some say can't have won first prize.

I recently queried a comp organiser about a poem that has won an novice prize but did not win the overall first prize in the same competition - for which it would have been eligible. So, has i won a first prize or not and did that disqualify it? The organisers weren't sure, they hadn't had that problem before.

Heather