"Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood"

Week Five: Guest Judge Dara Wier

Dara Wier's recent books include Remnants of Hannah and Reverse Rapture (awarded the Poetry Center & American Poetry Archives Book Award). A Selected Poems is forthcoming from Wave Books, and it will be Wier's eleventh book! Her poems can be found in Pushcart, Best American Poetry, Norton, Soft Skull and various other anthologies, and in American Poetry Review, Conduit, Crazyhorse, Denver Quarterly, jubilat, slope, Turnrow, New American Review, Volt. A limited edition, (X In Fix), is in RainTaxi's Brainstorm series. The Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Massachusetts Cultural Council and the American Poetry Review have supported her work. She's a member of the poetry faculty and director of the MFA program for poets and writers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and co-director of the Juniper Initiative for Literary Arts and Action. Click here pre-order Wier's Selected Poems, which comes out in September.

Project Verse: Drama Continues

There is much to be discussed with Project Verse. If you didn't think a poetry competition could be filled with sass and drama, well, you were very wrong!

Check out the previous blog post for all the Project Verse drama, or you may simply click here.


As mentioned in the previous post, the drama started when Project Verse contestant Martin Ott left this comment:

My Dolly poem was accepted for the November issue of Two Review the first time I sent it out (and they get 7000 submissions per issue). Kind of takes the sting out of being on the bottom twice last week.

To follow up, Martin had this to say:

Sunday night sent out a few poems to a magazine I just heard about and added the Dolly poem as a lark...got the acceptance Monday morning at which point I forwarded the email to Dustin asking him about attribution. He kindly sent me the rules and I immediately shot the editor of Two Review a note about Project verse and the need for attribution.

Before I get to the "meat and bones," I need to address a couple of items that have ruffled my wondrously gay feathers.

(1)
Weekly Judge Dana Guthrie Martin wrote:

Martin's poem had not yet been judged by Project Verse judges when he sent it to Two Review. It was thus still under evaluation for inclusion in Dustin and Emma's collection of 50 poems paying tribute to Dolly Parton.

What if Martin had won the week's challenge? He knew that winning would include publication in the tribute collection. It doesn't seem right to send the piece out for consideration elsewhere under those circumstances.

Martin Ott had a problem with this and responded with:

It's one thing when a contestant calls you a liar which W.F. did; it's another when a judge does.

I don't think I can get a fair review from a judge after she states a falsehood about me on a blog, and highly doubt I'll be submitting my next poem (which I have a draft of) for Dana's consideration.

Martin, you are wrong; Dana is correct. You commented that you don't think you would get a fair review after all this drama around your Dolly tribute poem. You are wrong! There are so many reasons why I selected Beth Gylys and Dana Guthrie Martin as weekly guest judges. I enjoy their work and attitudes, and they are gifted poets. I know and believe that NONE of the judges associate attitude (or any issues for that matter) with a poet's work. We share a belief: It is all about the work. We want the work to speak for itself. If we didn't share this belief Emily, who was quite the sassy-pants after she read the judges' comments to her poem from Week 2: Firsts, wouldn't be around. Hell, she even won Week 4: Shore Tags, and she was the first contestant to receive a vote from EVERY judge.


(2)
Martin wrote:

It is my right to believe the following:
- poetry judges should have more experience than contestants
- poetry judges should not state flasehoods about contestants as facts

Your second statement has been addressed above. As for your first statement, when you applied to Project Verse you were provided with the names of the weekly judges. You had time to research each of us. It is your problem if you failed to do so. You shouldn't have applied if you had any issues with our credentials. Do you realize your comment makes you sound bitter? It is unfortunate that you sound like a kid who wants to stop the game because he is losing. I think you are a better man than that, Martin. The sad part is that you weren't losing.


The bottome line
This goes back to Dana being right. Martin, you submitted your poems before the results were announced. You even admitted that in your submission to Two Review that you did not give Project Verse credit. When you applied to Project Verse you agreed to this statement:

By participating in Project Verse, you agree to acknowledge Project Verse as first publisher in future reprints of books, anthologies, website publications, podcasts, radio, etc. Copyright reverts back to authors upon appearance in the Project Verse competition, which takes place on the I Was Born Doing Reference Work in Sin site.

Martin, you might remember that Project Verse was down two competitors the first week because they didn't abide by the rules. One of the eliminated competitors didn't submit on time because a close relative was diagnosed with cancer that same week. I hated it for him, but the rules are the rules. Niina Pollari was just eliminated because she didn't submit her poem by deadline.

Are you catching it, Martin?

I take rules seriously. Claiming ignorance of the law doesn't excuse you from breaking it. You can say you didn't realize you had to give Project Verse first credit, but I have the email where you agree to do so, and I have the email where you admit that you failed to do so.

Martin, you are out of the competition for violating one of the rules of Project Verse.

Project Verse Drama!?!

You are missing out if you're not reading the comments on the Project Verse entries.

Contestant Martin Ott has recently raised questions from his fellow Project Verse contestants when he posted this comment:

My Dolly poem was accepted for the November issue of Two Review the first time I sent it out (and they get 7000 submissions per issue). Kind of takes the sting out of being on the bottom twice last week.

Contestants want to know if Martin has violated any rules.

When each contestant applied to Project Verse, he/she agreed to the Rules/Regulations/All That Jazz. Two of those items are:
 By participating in Project Verse, you agree to acknowledge Project Verse as first publisher in future reprints of books, anthologies, website publications, podcasts, radio, etc. Copyright reverts back to authors upon appearance in the Project Verse competition, which takes place on the I Was Born Doing Reference Work in Sin site.
 While the copyright reverts back to the author upon appearance in the Project Verse competition, Dustin Brookshire in combination with Project Verse and I Was Born Doing Reference Work in Sin, reserve the right to use any poems from the competition to create an anthology in the future.


If Martin acknowledged Project Verse as the first publisher to the Two Review editors, he didn't break any rules.

BUT, did this happen?

Week 5: The Between

WEEK 5: THE BETWEEN


I am borrowing a workshop prompt from Dara Wier.

Dara once pointed out that in Elizabeth Bishop's "The Fish," the first and last lines create a sentence:
"I caught a tremendous fish / And I let it go."

Project Verse Competitors: You must select a setence, and you're going to split that sentence. Part of the sentence will have to be the first line of your poem and the other part will be the last line of your poem. By the way, you don't get to create your own sentence. Come on, that would be too easy!

Your options come from Margaret Atwood's Alias Grace:

Option 1:
Thus the private asylum is far beyond his reach at the present.

Option 2:
As soon as he saw her, he knew that this wouldn't happen.

Option 3:
He approached her with a calm and smiling face, presenting an image of goodwill.

Option 4:
A piece of toast cracks like slate between his teeth.

Option 5:
He already has a name, she sighs reproachfully.


Select your sentence, and write your poem in 40 lines or less.
There are no form constraints.
One person will end up like Bishop's fish.

Get to writing!

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Project Verse ~ Week 4: Shore Tags & Curveball Results

The judges have deliberated on the poems from Week 4: Shore Tags and Project Verse's Curveball.

Beth, Dustin, and Dana were joined by guest judge Collin Kelley for Week 4: Shore Tags. Click here to revisit the Shore Tags poems.

For the Project Verse Curveball, the weekly judges were joined by guest judges Emma Bolden and Dollymania's Duane Gordon. Click here to revisit the Curveball poems.



MICAH LING
KRISTEN MCHENRY
EMILY VAN DUYNE
EMARI DIGIORGIO
KATHI MORRISON-TAYLOR
NIINA POLLARI
MARTIN OTT


Kristen and Emily, one of your poems received four out of four votes as the top poem for Week 4: Shore Tags, and the other received three out of four votes. It was close. On the other end, Niina and Martin, your poems tied for the weakest poem of Week 4: Shore Tags.


Emari, Micah, and Martin, your poems tied for the weakest poem of the Project Verse Curveball. Kristen and Kathi, one of your poems received four out of five votes as the top poem for the Curveball assignment, and the other received three out of five votes.


Emily, your Week 4: Shore Tags poem is going to be published in Dana Guthrie Martin's Shore Tags Project. Congratulations!

Kristen, your Project Verse Curveball poem is going find its way in the 50 poems paying tribute to Dolly Parton project by Emma Bolden and me. Congratulations!


Niina, you submitted your Week 4: Shore Tags poem after the 10am deadline; therefore, you are on permanent caesura!

Drop Dead Diva!

Tonight, I tuned into the season premiere of "Drop Dead Diva" at the recommendation of my friend Lisa Allender. As I turned the channel to Lifetime, I was worried that I was about to lose an hour of my life and regret the hell out of watching the show; however, I thoroughly enjoyed "Drop Dead Diva." There wasn't a moment of the show that I didn't find entertaining. The first episode of "Drop Dead Diva" had touching moments mixed with loads of funny moments-- it really was the perfect mix. Brooke Elliot (Jane) and Margaret Cho (Teri) rocked my socks off, and I enjoyed eye candy Jackson Hurst (Grayson). I respectfully ask Executive Producer/Creator/Writer Josh Berman to give us more shirtless scenes starring Hurst's character; please and thanks!

I plan to follow this show, and I think you should check it out too. Below you'll find a trailer to give you the gist of the show.