March 4, 2005

Poets v. U. of Iowa Press

The University of Iowa is known for its Writers’ Workshop, so it’s no surprise that the University of Iowa Press builds on that literary reputation with annual prizes for poetry and short fiction.

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In recent weeks, an anonymous Web site has begun a campaign against the press, arguing that it favors entries with connections to the university. The Web site, Foetry, calls itself “the poetry watchdog” and boasts of its role “exposing the fraudulent ‘contests,’ tracking the sycophants, naming names.”

The Web site is urging poets to send letters to consumer advocates, state officials and the university’s president, and to lawyers who might help with a class action lawsuit (based on Foetry’s view that participants are duped into paying the $20 entry fee, unaware that they may have little chance of winning if they don’t have Iowa ties).

At the Iowa Press, officials are astonished to find themselves under attack by an army of poets and poetry fans — most of them anonymous.

“It’s hard to have a useful dialogue with an anonymous Web site,” said Holly Carver, director of the press. She noted that Iowa’s contests are “blind,” meaning that names, affiliations, dedications and other identifying facts are removed before judging. “It’s just a little hard to say how our contest could be more democratic than it already is.”

Actually, Foetry and its readers have plenty of ideas about that. The Web site has criticized other poetry contests — many of them sponsored by universities and their presses — for similar reasons. But the Iowa attack, perhaps because of the prominence of its writing program, has really taken off.

The 2004 winners of Iowa’s poetry contest were Megan Johnson, who has an MFA from the Writers’ Workshop, and Susan Wheeler, who has taught at Iowa. The Foetry Web site also lists many past winners with Iowa connections, and it didn’t help matters much when the Iowa Press recently announced the winners of its annual short fiction contest, who also had Iowa ties.

So for many Foetry readers, the obvious answer is for Iowa to bar its alumni and current or former employees from entering. And these readers are not shy about expressing their feelings.

“You ought to be ashamed of yourselves, to perpetrate a fraud on aspiring poets, and hide under your university umbrella to lure unsuspecting people into your web of deceit. Any respectable contest bars employees, including former employees,” wrote one, who added that he views Iowa’s award as “a fixed contest that is really just a mutual admiration society for a tiny clique.”

Another comment on the Foetry site responds to Carver’s statements about the contest being blind. “Dear Holly Carver,” the person wrote. “Removing names and acknowledgments pages isn’t enough, and you know it. If a teacher has helped to shape a friend’s poems, do you think they need a name to recognize them? You are so busted. Cold-busted.”

And yet another said: “The more I read about this stuff, the more I feel I exist in some weird parallel universe. How on earth have we gotten to this point, where people pay to have their envelopes opened by some anonymous graduate student, and all that cash then funds a judge picking his or her drinking buddy, lover, colleague or former student? It’s simply perverse.”

Carver says that there is a perfectly legitimate reason why so many people with Iowa connections with the contests: Iowa attracts great writers. “The workshop is one of the premiere writing programs in the country and over the years its graduates have gone on to become influences on their campuses, and there is a huge diaspora, a stellar one,” she says.

She said the controversy “is a real shame — it’s a shame that with the economics of poetry so marginal, something as noble as publishing good poetry has come under attack.”

So who created Foetry? In an e-mail interview, the site’s founder would say little about himself except that he’s a male academic. Asked if he had any particular grudge with Iowa or writing contests, he said that he never applied to the Writers’ Workshop and that his concern is simply with “ethical behavior.”

— scott.jaschik@insidehighered.com

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