Rodney Koeneke responds to my comments on prizes & awards.

 

Hi Ron,

 

I share your suspicion of contests and what they mean to the wider writing scene. My critique lost some of its edge though when I won the Transcontinental Poetry Award from David Baratier's Pavement Saw Press this year (Rouge State must be one of those 22 “first books published as a result of a contest” in 2003). I'm writing mostly to send props to David Baratier. The guy didn't know me from Adam, hadn't seen my name in publications, knew zilch about my poetic affiliations until after the award. The contest didn't have a judge this time, which it usually does, so in this case the publisher made his own decision about the manuscript to choose. Maybe that helped. He also told me (or did he post this once upon a time to the poetics list?) about MFA teachers calling him up to plump for their students. Far as I can tell, David's holding out – Lord knows I didn't have a plumper.

 

Since the award, David's made an effort to get to know me and to send me work of other poets he likes or thinks I will. I've been impressed with what a genuine fan he is of other writers' stuff, especially poets who maybe haven't gotten their due; the Simon Perchik book's a great example. My experience isn't typical, I know, but I can't help feeling that if more contests were like Pavement Saw's, there'd be a lot less cynicism about them. So three cheers for David Baratier!

 

Yours,

 

Rodney

 

I share Koeneke’s enthusiasm for Baratier – his is the kind of work that gives the community of poetry genuine substance. But Rouge State is its own best argument. In rather typical small press fashion, the press hasn’t gotten the book onto its web site yet, although it’s already been published. And you cannot find a list of Transcontinental Poetry Award Winners anywhere on the net. The best mention you can find of Koeneke’s award on the web is in Eileen Tabios’ Corpse Poetics blog. As best I can tell, the other winners of this award include:

 

·         Dana Curtis, The Body’s Response to Famine, 1999

 

·         Jeffrey Levine, Mortal, Everlasting, 2000

 

·         Sofia Starnes, A Commerce of Moments, 2001