Anis Shivani’s indictment of the contest model & why ‘fairness’ contradicts art

While propping up the bar last night because I was there early and fairly unengaged with sound check, I let myself start thinking about Anis Shivani’s latest bomb of criticism over at HuffPo– ‘Poetry Book Contests Should be Abolished: Why Contests Are the Stupidest Way to Publish First Books’.

First off, let me say that Shivani is a great critic and as such an extremely persuasive writer, and this can be a problem for me when reading his occasionally overly caustic appraisals of the poetry world. So I’ve taken a day or so to try and get past my initial agreement and actually consider the finer points of the argument.

I won’t attempt to paraphrase his argument– go ahead and read it, it’s worth it– but basically Shivani is questioning the validity of poetry contests, particularly those that offer first publication of a book, primarily because these kind of contest have elbowed out the role of poetry press editors with a definite aesthetic vision from the publishing process. It’s a compelling argument– he goes on to explain how this, in his opinion, has led to a blandness in contemporary poetry, with MFA students churning out contest-vanilla-flavour collections that tick boxes rather than attempt any boldness of language, theme or vision. Personally I think this is a heinous generalisation, but let’s go with it for now. He also attacks the contest-model for more ethical rather than aesthetic reasons, suggesting that, like any system, it is liable to corruption (he dishes some pretty good dirt too).

What is most interesting in Shivani’s critique is how he calls into question the role of purported ‘fairness’ in the contest process:

What happens to editorial judgment, consistent aesthetic vision, commitment to particular values, building a movement, advocating for a particular style, and creating a critical mass of new writing if the contest model is allegedly based in “impartiality” and “blindness”–in other words, pretends to be the exemplar of democracy, egalitarianism, and disavowal of values? Has institutionalization gone too far? Would we all be better off–far-fetched as it sounds–if the contest model were eliminated and consistent editorial judgment were allowed to enter into the process of first book publication again?

The idea of blind submission is almost a given in the submission process, and not a value that is often questioned. I admit, when I first read the article I scanned over this part, but the issue reopened itself this morning when an email from Mslexia popped into my inbox asking me to take a poetry survey in order that ‘the magazine doesn’t become skewed towards any particular group of readers‘.

This kind of devotion to democratic publishing brought into focus Shivani’s question of editorial judgement and consistent aesthetic vision. What is so wrong with skewing a magazine to a particular readership? Surely having a clear identity is central to a literary magazine?

I don’t for a second seriously think that Shivani’s is advocating the complete destruction of impartial submissions. However it does seem as if the notion of ‘fairness’ that is championed in the poetry arena may be diluting the strength of contemporary poetry both by placing political correctness above the actual quality of art and by constructing a kind of formula for success.

The possibility of moving away from the contest model is extremely thin, though. Small presses are already inundated, and most aspiring poets bypass them altogether to fit into the dominant publication pattern.

Finally, a word of defence for Shivani. Some critics have pointed out that his debut poetry collection, My Tranquil War and Other Poems, has itself been through the contest system, having been a semifinalist for the 2010 Noemi Book Award for Poetry, and a finalist for the 2010 Bright Hill Press Poetry Book Award. Does this mean he can’t criticise the system? absolutely not. If no-one was permitted to speak out against systems they are bound into, the world would be a terrifying place.