Notes from the MMM Press Poetry Editor on the 2006 Book Contest
The MMM Press 2006 Poetry Book Contest was different from the previous years in several important ways. It was the first time that the new MMM staff and I had such a great responsibility, so we all wanted to do it in a way that would be very fair and genuinely open to many kinds of poets. At least two of us read each manuscript, and I read all of them.
We also had some editors who worked as extra readers who were able to offer a fresh point of view whenever I thought it was possible that my knowledge of a poet's style or themes could make me biased either for or against a writer. (The mss. were anonymous, but in some cases I would remember a poem in the ms. from seeing it published etc., so the identity would be known to me but not to many others.) Sometimes, I would ask one or two other others to take a look.
We found a lot of strong semifinalist and finalist manuscripts from the piles of submissions (there were around two hundred entries, which is a small compared to most book contests, I think.) I am sure that we all learned a great deal from reading especially this semi-finalist group.
What were we looking for?
We were hoping to find a really outstanding ms. that would blow us away, start to end, that would be original, new or innovative in some way. We wanted something unforgettable, provocative and moving.
I think that the first three MMM Press authors, Alison Stone, Patrick Lawler and myself helped to give a direction to the press, but our actual books were really radically different from each other in terms of styles and content.... On the other hand the first three books from MMM Press shared some significant world-views and attitudes even though I am sure our first acquaintance came through the fact that MMM Press did our books. We were all in some way chosen by the former staff.
What made some mss. stronger than others? As a reader, I had to ask myself this question many times, and this was not an easy question for me or anyone else. I know that I was looking for mss. that said something substantial which were also stylistically or formally innovative or extraordinarily strong within the forms that were used.
Well, you ask, What does saying something substantial mean? When we had a number of strong mss., and there were many mss. in which there were great poems and even great extended sequences, the theme of the whole work would sometimes accumulate greater and greater resonance. In other cases, when I finished the ms. and asked myself, What did this add up to now that it is all over? there was sometimes no resounding answer. A strong book should say something important. Likewise, it should say it in such a way that the style and form are indelibly imprinted on the mind of the reader.
A shorter way to answer this question might be: originality, as well as unity or coherence of style, really counted.
Did previous publications, honors, prizes in acknowledgements etc. matter?
The acknowledgements pages in the mss. were often very impressive in themselves, but this usually had little impact on the way the book worked. Sometimes I wondered if some of the poets were thinking sort of backwards in assembling a ms., i.e. by starting from poems that happened to have gained some important publication credits rather than starting with (or building up to) something important to say.
How did we decide which ones were the finalists and semi-finalists?
Every finalist had a very strong, original style and an engaging theme or sometimes many related themes. When everyone in the semifinalist group is writing very well and often brilliantly, I would start to ask harder questions and try to imagine the work in front of me as an actual book competing for the attentions of readers who could just as easily read any other poetry book in print. Would I want to read this book in the future if I hadn't already read it? Would it invite and reward multiple re-readings?
It was still difficult, no matter how many questions I asked myself, to separate out from the semi-finalist group the half dozen greatest mss. Every editor has to admit that at least some preferences about style, themes and forms come into play. Luckily for us, the final decision was not solely in our hands, and we knew that we could count on Patrick Lawler to be a great final judge.
Did finalists get a chance to send in an updated or revised ms?
I had heard from some other book contests, that judges and/or readers sometimes allow finalists to send in a revised version before they went to the final judge. I thought it could be helpful to the finalists to give them a chance to revise their mss. before this final submission. So I contacted them via email and/or called them on the phone.
You may be wondering what I could tell the finalists that could be helpful AND fair and not give any special advantage to anyone. I thought about that too. I knew that one of these poets was going to win, and all of them were worthy. So no matter whom the winner turned out to be, it was going to be better for MMM Press and for the poets if they all had a chance to refine their visions.
I tried to get the poets to rethink where they are as writers, i.e. imagine that you are writing not just for a contest prize but for a far more important kind of audience, the next generations of readers. Imagine that you have a chance here to create not just a good book but a great book, and with that in mind, is there anything in here that isn't absolutely necessary? And is there anything in here that could be seen as redundant? I gave my honest impressions to all the finalists who wanted to hear them, and this actually helped several of the finalists to sharpen and refine the works before they went off for the final judging.
Importantly, I did try to offer my honest impressions about the unique strengths in each of the mss. Sometimes, I would ask questions, too. I was sure that all of them would or could soon find other publishers, and this is proving to be true, I'm glad to say.
Why did I want to help them?
It was not without self interest. I wanted MMM Press to end up with the greatest book that we could possibly get, and I did not know which one it was going to be. So offering some help to all of them seemed like a useful extra step, and it was a free offer. They were able to say no thanks, and one did. It was not like a tremendous amount of extra work for me anyway since I'd already read and re-read these mss., sometimes several times. If I did not share some of the thoughts that I had about their mss., then a lot of that work as an editor would have simply gone to waste, as it were.
At that finalists stage, I was not so much a screener as I was a coach trying to encourage this phenomenally talented group of poets to step back, pause, imagine how the work could be still greater, and then plunge ahead. I have heard heard from most of the finalists that they were happy about this help.
I think that this finalist stage was one thing that made our contest stronger, i.e. that there was a possibility for the finalists to get help to make the ms. even better. If it did not win here, it would have a better chance elsewhere.
(Incidentally, it is true that there are some editors who think that this kind of work is a "service" to the writers, and one such editor has even ask for more money (even a lot of money) for that kind of "expert consultation."I never thought of such a possibility, and I think it would in fact be sort of exploitive of writers whose hopes were being raised. All the entrants had already paid their entry fee. Everyone knows at the outset that some people who make it to the final round are going to get a lot more attention than the average person.)
As a side benefit, I was very glad to get to know, or know better, the work of these great finalists. Of the six, there was only one whose work I knew well, and there were only two others whose work I'd seen in literary small press before. In fact, all six of them ultimately had work accepted for the new Many Mountains Moving Vol. VII, three long before the contest, and I invited three after the judging was over to have a few poems published in Vol. VII. Thus, without really planning to, we did publish at least some work by all six of the finalists.
The winner, Anne-Marie Cusac was not one of the poets that I was familiar with before. In fact, her ms. was so new that she had no previous publications in the acknowledgements page; however, she had had a previous book, The Mean Days, from Tia Chucha Press. When we learned about her, we were more and more impressed by her other writing, her other credentials, and herself. Patrick and I met Anne-Marie for the first time at AWP this spring, and she was as extraordinary and amazing in real life as her book was, and we are grateful for all of that.
—Jeffrey Ethan Lee
