The first thing someone interested in the poetry competition should know is that to enter it you have to have had twenty or more poems published in five or more magazines, single- author books, or anthologies (but not the ones whose publishers ask contributors to buy copies of, even if they don't require them to). Otherwise, anyone can apply, so it's a pretty democratic set-up. You simply send in a brief resume, proof of having sufficient publishing credits, and a set of eight one-page poems (or a single long poem of up to 15 pages). But beware: "Competition for fellowships is rigorous. Potential applicants should consider carefully whether or not their work merits support at the national level." Good grief.

One aspect of the procedure struck me as unfair: the policy of not allowing an applicant to include explanatory material with his work. reversing this policy would, of course, most benefit burstnorm poets like me since NEA judges do not yet know how to read--or, to be more accurate, experience--what we're doing. Preventing us from explaining our poems thus discriminates in favor of received-craft poets whom everybody understands, even NEA judges.

Many lovers of poetry would retort that judges should discriminate in favor of poetry that can stand on its own, that if you have to explain a work of art, it's no good. This is crap. All poetry requires explanation, it's just that traditional poetry gets it in the schools, innovative poetry doesn't. The response to that, I suppose, would be that poetry that requires more explanation than schools provide is flawed. To that I can only reply, "To each his own--but why wouldn't it be fair to reward both easily comprehended and difficult poetry?"

To get that done we need not only to allow explanatory material, we need a better way of picking judges. I therefore suggest that all candidates for judgeships be required to write essays describing their poetics. Then some group of practicing poets such as those listed in the directory of poets that Poets & Writers puts out should be asked to rank them numerically, on the basis of their essays. But the candidates ranking highest shouldn't necessarily then be made judges, just some of them--plus two or three randomly- selected from those ranking the lowest. Making judges of a few candidates unpopular with run-of-the-mill poets would give at least an occasional non-dominant- mode voice a chance of getting NEA support.

I have one other suggestion: it is for NEA judges also to numerically rank the applicants they review. Thus, if I ranked 3,996th out of 4,000 applicants, I (and posterity) would have a useful idea of how I was doing at the time in the Big World. How the judges were doing would be more evident, too. Indeed, all kinds of useful information could be extracted if such a ranking system were in effect--like average placement of visual poets compared to songmode poets compared to Ashbery clones compared to street poets, etc., etc. For those who believe in programs like the NEA, rankings could help high-ranking non-winners--by encouraging them, and perhaps persuading publishers who go by credentials rather than achievement to open their pages to them. And my kind of publishers could save time by closing their pages to anyone whose NEA ranking was higher than 3,996th. All kinds of good things could come from adopting this idea of mine. What I've said about explanatory material and how to select judges is worth considering, too. So don't dawdle: write Congress about my ideas at once! (But say they were Willard's, not mine.)

This past January I put in for an NEA fellowship in poetry for the first time. I knew I'd have no chance of winning, but figured what the hell, the application procedure was easy enough, and it'd be an experience I could eventually write about, in the process getting off some shots at the mediocrities beating me out, like Willard Spiegelman did two years ago when I tried for a Guggenheim in literary criticism. Willard has founded his reputation on the thesis that all the best contemporary poets are didactic--because their poems express points of view. He also believes that A. R. Ammons is a visual poet because his poems' left-hand margins are sometimes ragged. But enough of Willard. My real reason for this essay is to pass on a little information about the NEA competitions, and a few of the thoughts that occurred to me while I was filling out forms for the one I entered.

The first thing someone interested in the poetry competition should know is that to enter it you have to have had twenty or more poems published in five or more magazines, single- author books, or anthologies (but not the ones whose publishers ask contributors to buy copies of, even if they don't require them to). Otherwise, anyone can apply, so it's a pretty democratic set-up. You simply send in a brief resume, proof of having sufficient publishing credits, and a set of eight one-page poems (or a single long poem of up to 15 pages). But beware: "Competition for fellowships is rigorous. Potential applicants should consider carefully whether or not their work merits support at the national level." Good grief.

One aspect of the procedure struck me as unfair: the policy of not allowing an applicant to include explanatory material with his work. reversing this policy would, of course, most benefit burstnorm poets like me since NEA judges do not yet know how to read--or, to be more accurate, experience--what we're doing. Preventing us from explaining our poems thus discriminates in favor of received-craft poets whom everybody understands, even NEA judges.

Many lovers of poetry would retort that judges should discriminate in favor of poetry that can stand on its own, that if you have to explain a work of art, it's no good. This is crap. All poetry requires explanation, it's just that traditional poetry gets it in the schools, innovative poetry doesn't. The response to that, I suppose, would be that poetry that requires more explanation than schools provide is flawed. To that I can only reply, "To each his own--but why wouldn't it be fair to reward both easily comprehended and difficult poetry?"

To get that done we need not only to allow explanatory material, we need a better way of picking judges. I therefore suggest that all candidates for judgeships be required to write essays describing their poetics. Then some group of practicing poets such as those listed in the directory of poets that Poets & Writers puts out should be asked to rank them numerically, on the basis of their essays. But the candidates ranking highest shouldn't necessarily then be made judges, just some of them--plus two or three randomly- selected from those ranking the lowest. Making judges of a few candidates unpopular with run-of-the-mill poets would give at least an occasional non-dominant- mode voice a chance of getting NEA support.

I have one other suggestion: it is for NEA judges also to numerically rank the applicants they review. Thus, if I ranked 3,996th out of 4,000 applicants, I (and posterity) would have a useful idea of how I was doing at the time in the Big World. How the judges were doing would be more evident, too. Indeed, all kinds of useful information could be extracted if such a ranking system were in effect--like average placement of visual poets compared to songmode poets compared to Ashbery clones compared to street poets, etc., etc. For those who believe in programs like the NEA, rankings could help high-ranking non-winners--by encouraging them, and perhaps persuading publishers who go by credentials rather than achievement to open their pages to them. And my kind of publishers could save time by closing their pages to anyone whose NEA ranking was higher than 3,996th. All kinds of good things could come from adopting this idea of mine. What I've said about explanatory material and how to select judges is worth considering, too. So don't dawdle: write Congress about my ideas at once! (But say they were Willard's, not mine.)