One of the main ways that people get a book of poetry published, particularly a first book, is by winning a poetry book contest. There are dozens of these book contests out there. A few years ago, I read for one of them, helping to make the first cut of submissions.
It was not an anonymous contest, and the applicants provided short biographies as requested. They had a wide range of backgrounds, publishing credits or lack thereof, educational backgrounds, and life experiences.
Not everyone whose manuscript I forwarded to the next round had a post-graduate education. However, it had always seemed to me that most poetry book contest winners have MFAs.
Poetry book contests are expensive to enter – $25 seems to be an average. A contest can receive hundreds of submissions. In 2015, for example, between 800 and 1,000 people entered the contest for the American Poetry Review’s 2015 Honickman First Book Prize (source here.)
I was curious as to how often people without post-graduate degrees win poetry book contests.
I took a look at the past 5 winners of each of these 10 annual contests for books of poetry. I chose these 10 from a long list of poetry book contests. I mostly chose based on who hadn’t suspended the annual contest in the past five years, whose website was up to date enough to list a 2015 winner, and who had a list of past winners on their website.
American Poetry Review’s Honickman First Book Prize
Blue Lynx Prize for Poetry
White Pine Book Prize
Akron Poetry Prize
Noemi Press Book Award
Cider Press Review Editors Prize
Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize, U. of Pittsburgh Press
Walt Whitman Award, Academy of American Poets
A. Poulin Jr. Poetry Prize, BOA Editions
Cleveland State University Poetry Center, First Book Award
Here are the levels of education of the winners of these contests in the past five years:
MFA – 41
MA – 4
PhD – 4
MFA student – 1
no post-grad education – 0
Here’s what it looks like in a pie chart, in case you like that sort of thing.
Some of the MFA and PhD holders also had MAs. I didn’t list an MA unless it was the winner’s only post-graduate degree. One person had two MFAs, one in fiction and one in poetry, but I only listed one MFA per person.
Based on quick scans of the contest guidelines, it looks like that the majority of them are judged anonymously. So what’s going on here?
Either advanced degrees make you a much better poet, as they are intended to do, or they enable you to fit in better with what judges expect from literary poetry. My own MFA experience suggests more of the latter, but that was a long while ago.
Because of my contest reading experience, I’m theorizing that plenty of people with no advanced degrees are entering these contests. If you’ve read for a lot of contests and my experience was a fluke, let me know.
I believe my sampling includes a few of the most prestigious book contests. It may be that smaller contests are more open to people without post-graduate degrees. However, I’m guessing that more prestigious contests attract more applicants without advanced degrees, because more people have heard of these contests and because the cash prizes are larger.
Here’s my question:
Is it ethical for poetry book contests to accept paid entries from poets who don’t have graduate degrees if these applicants almost never win?
Consider that the high cost of education excludes many poets without a lot of money in the first place. I think the contests likely prey on both newer and non-academic poets who don’t understand the odds.
I’m not an expert on any of this, and I’d love to hear from people who are in the comments. And if you’re new to the blog and you like to talk about writing things, you can follow the blog by subscribing below. Thanks for reading!
Excellent post, Bryn. I think any contest worth entering should be free and judged without the judges knowing anything about the writer, even a name. Bias often is ingrained, not always intentional. It’s not just small prizes you can win without a fancy degree. In Part III of Elizabeth Gilbert’s 2015 book “Big Magic,” she wrote, “Twelve North American writers have won the Nobel Prize in Literature since 1901: Not one of them had an MFA. Four of them never even got past high school.” She says only go after an MFA if you’ve got money to burn and want the degree.
I graduated with honors with a Journalism degree from an accredited university, my minor was English “with a Professional Writing Emphasis,” and any time someone suggests I go back for a Master of Fine Arts or Accounting or any such thing I say, “No! I’m debt free, I see how buried in school loans my younger siblings are, and I’m not paying $25K or more, plus interest.” I see people with no “higher education” making more than me, publishing and creating fantastic things, living full and wonderful lives because ALL life experience is education and a bunch of letters after your name doesn’t make you or your work inherently superior to another’s. However, if you want to practice brain surgery, please go to school and adhere to licensing requirements.
Thanks, Kathryn! I really feel like these presses need to either find alternate sources of funding or expand their vision of what poetry should be.
I have got to read Big Magic, obviously!
I absolutely cannot recommend an MFA. It’s not just that I didn’t learn anything of use, although I didn’t, but I was also talked out of my strengths and it took me a long time to recover. I honestly don’t see the point of MFA programs given the fact that the internet exists. You can learn everything you need to know about writing, and you can find peers to encourage you and critique your work.
Agreed about brain surgery though, haha!
Thanks for commenting!
This was an interesting study and analysis. I enjoyed reading it and you make some good points.
Thanks Anne, and thank you so much for reading!
Part of their success may be that during an MFA, there’s lots of collaboration. That is, you get feedback from other students, all of them probably very talented. Plus, you get feedback from the prof, usually a literary heavyweight. Nothing at all wrong with that: Ezra Pound helped edit “The Waste Land” for T. S. Eliot. And it’s the way to improve. But that does make the competition pretty stiff if you don’t have that kind of help.
Yeah, it could be! I’m mostly concerned with outsiders not knowing what the odds are, whatever the reason. Thanks for reading, Charlie, and for commenting!
I’m currently an MFA student and recovering from feedback on my writing is like losing exponential muscle mass post-miscarriage in your 30s. However, with multiple personalities for perspectives of “good poetry” in academia, I recognize what’s acceptable in the literary world.
After taking a slam poetry workshop (outside of the MFA program) I finally felt homeostasis. What soars over a “slam” river doesn’t skip a rock in the literary ocean–and yet slam isn’t my thing.
Now, I’m gearing up to coach others thru their personal development as a writer (my MFA project), encouraging the writer within to emerge authentically and confidently as they step into their arena of choice. Expecting to see miracles someday… 😉
As a side note, I also live in the KC area. Perhaps we’ll connect here soon!
Rah