Uncategorized | July 28, 2004

The Boston Globe recently ran an article about one of the most talked-about new websites in the poetry world, Foetry. The website aims to serve as a watchdog for American poetry, exposing fraudulent contests and unscrupulous judges (i.e., judges who pick former students’ manuscripts as contest winners), even naming some names. While The Globe seems skeptical of the need for such oversight, it fails to mention one of the most unethical advantages to such activity on judges’ parts: the indirect benefit they, and the writing programs they are a part of, reap from students’ book publications. Student publication bolsters their writing programs’ reputations, and their own reputation as well. I think this is a situation in poetry that could benefit from a little scrutiny.