NFSPS Contests 2010
Summary of Judges’ Comments
Summarized by Contest Chair Christine Beck, June 13, 2010
Over half of the judges responded with general comments on judging the contests. Many others put specific comments on particular poems that won awards. This report summarizes many of the general comments of the judges, both about how to write a winning poem and pitfalls to avoid.
Many judges said that they received far more good poems than award slots and encouraged poets to submit their poems again if they did not win. One judge said that the honorable mentions were all interchangeable as to position, and the ranking was based simply on his “taste.” Many were genuinely distressed not to be able to make more awards and encouraged poets to keep writing and not be discouraged.
The most common comment about what elevated an honorable mention to a prize category was consistency in quality throughout the poem. One judge said that the winning poems simply came down to personal preference. Another said that the winner had a slightly better flow. Judge #24 said that several poems would have moved up in rank had the poets paid closer attention to craft. “As Thomas Edison said, ‘Genius is one-tenth inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.”
Judge #34 said “keep writing, and if you are not using concrete imagery, find a way to do it and revise your poem.”
The judge for Contest #1 said “the three poetic tools I consider most important are a suitable title, a good “hook line” to begin the poem to make the reader excited to read on, and more important, a really insightful end line. Many really fine poems were eliminated because the poem went on after it could have been declared finished.” He suggested leaving off the last stanza to see if an earlier line would be more effective.
Judge #30 said: a winning poem is filled with images that engage the senses, make us see, hear, feel, taste, and smell, words that evoke a sensory response, pictures in the mind. ...A winning poem has been read aloud dozens, perhaps even hundreds, of times by its author, and in those readings been honed and polished, edited and re-edited, to make sure every word has value, carries its own weight and then some, so that the end result, the poem as presented, is whole and ready to be completed in the minds of interested readers and hearers, folks who love good poetry.”
Judge #45 said “one of the primary purposes of poetry is to transport the reader to a place where the reader might not otherwise go,” commenting on the winning poem that takes place in an Italian kitchen.
A bit of mystery is often a good thing. As to the poem ‘Falling Sky,” the judge said “we never know why the sky is falling, but that is to the credit of the poet. The message is stronger without our knowing.”
Another judge said he wants a poem to have a “reason for being, not just be words on the paper...Poetry should have a musical quality, a cadence, even if it is free verse.”
Specific poetic devices mentioned by the judges included:
1. concrete images
2, fresh metaphors
3. assonance
4. similes
5. unexpected internal rhyme
6. meter that makes a poem a delight to read aloud
7. an exciting line or two
8. skillful use of traditional forms and rhyme.
9. fresh vocabulary
10. surprising images
11 originality
12. voice
13. strong content
14. attention to music of the line, prosody
15. sharp language and lack of cliche
16. economy of diction
17.strength of structure
18. depth of communication
19. emotional punch
20. playfulness
Our judge for #21 loved the variation used in one poem: “the poem uses repetition to connect disparate ideas and complex philosophies in an appealing manner. The inclusion of timely references, such as to YouTube, provide delightful variation with the heavier themes of struggle, need and animosity.”
Judge #26 said he liked receiving poems in different forms and “was especially delighted to see some very strong shorter poems.” He added that for poems in form, he looks for a poem that is so well crafted that the reader can focus entirely on the content. Although a “shape poem” won an honorable mention, the judge commented that “the words are what carry the poem.”
Judge #27 commented on subject: “when a subject is given, I look for poems that develop what is called for in an interesting way from start to finish; the poem title needs to be appropriate and subtitles, epigraphs, etc. used carefully.”
What to avoid
Judges also cautioned about poems that did not win: Judge for #6 said “Too many poems sounded the same few ideas; the bitterness of death; the details of a garden; salvation from above – valid themes, of course, but when these poems then delivered no surprising angle, or worse, relied on cliches, they fell short.”
Form
Many judges disqualified poems that did not follow the rules, particularly as to line length and form. In particular, contest #45 has a minimum line requirement, which many poets did not follow.
Judge #17 stated: “If you have any doubts about the form or genre requirements, Lewis Turco’s “The Book of Forms, A Handbook of Poetics” is very helpful. Another judge suggested the Oxford Book of Sonnets and William Baer’s “150 Contemporary Sonnets.”
The judge for #31 immediately disqualified 21 entries for failing to state the form of the sonnet as required by the rules. He eliminated another 30-40 for violations of technique. “Folks, if you maintain a pattern of true rhyme throughout and then make a slant rhyme, that’s a problem for me. Similarly, if you maintain perfect iambic meter throughout and then burst into anapests, that’s another fault. There’s no problem using slant rhyme (judiciously) or making substitutions to the iambic; the reader’s expectations having been established by a persistent use of iambics or true rhyme, have to be maintained throughout, though. My suggestion is to begin the poem with slant rhyme or counterpointing iambic substitutions (or both) rather than introducing it late in the poem.”
Many sonnets failed to place because they failed to find some visual image or provocative thought. Judge #31 said: I found many, many pieces that did not invoke anything visual – they were heavy with abstractions (truth, beauty, love, death) or that took familiar themes down familiar roads without saying anything new. They were technically competent, just not compelling enough. Like Exra Pound said, “make it new.”
Judge #36 narrowed the group to 20 high quality poems. “Most of the others got too bogged down in sentimentality and were too predictable. I would encourage these poets to study poetic devices and craft, to venture out into the unknown and unsettling, to study major and minor poets from traditional to contemporary and to read, read, read!!”
Judge #44 for the gloss poems disqualified those that did not use a rhymed quatrain or use a “rhyme scheme of one’s own choosing” in the gloss. She said that one-third of the entries were considered for the top spot.
As to the vilanelle, #46, the judge said “many entries suffered from trying to take on too much of a subject, leaving the poem unfocused; others focused too much and suffered from repetition.”
Humor
For humorous poems, the poet needs a strong punch line. “Though not impossible, it’s hard to be humorous with a fade-out.” Also, be aware that a humorous poem should be clever, which is not the same as cute, certainly not silly or weird.”
A number of humorous poems used strong music and made-up words, which delighted the judges and led to awards. (although they gave our reader a fit when reading them out loud cold.)
Stick to the Subject Matter
Judge #32, poems about journeys, said “some fine poems that I received had little or nothing to do with a journey.” Many other poems that came close did not make the final cut because “the end of the poem trailed off in a weak anticlimax or they contained lines that did nothing to advance the poem even though other parts of the poem were stunning.”
The judge for poems about environmental subjects, #34, cautioned against using “lengthy scientific words listing a host of infractions that reeked with pessimism. i tossed these, others that preached, and those with abstractions.”
Judge #18 narrowed her group of 208 entries down to 20 for serious consideration: because “most of the others used overused images in overused ways, or ended perfectly lovely poems with lectures, or worked the metaphors until they ended up a soggy mess.”
Proofread and make your poems perfect
Poems with errors in spelling, typos, abstract words, extraneous details were cut from winner categories Although one judge said she didn’t hold typos against a poet, others did. Judge #41 required perfect adherence to grammar and style.
Poems must be original
The judge for #39 discovered that one entry was a strong, funny poem, but it had already appeared on the internet and had to be disqualified.