[New-Poetry] Selection Process, Nat'l Book Awards

[Bob Grumman]

How much do they charge a publisher per entry?  What publisher would 
bother entering such a contest except one publishing the kind of stuff 
that has consistently taken prizes for twenty or more years?  The NBCC 
lets all members make nominations, but it's a waste of time for those 
few of us nominating anything unorthodox, as I did one year.

I just don't see the point of these awards.  No fair way of finding the 
best books of the year, much less of finding the best single one.  No 
way to read enough, even for the group, all taken together.  So these 
awards end just encouraging those few who have won enough prizes already 
not to need encouragement and their imitators, and discouraging those 
going their own way, or imitating non-prize-winners.

--Bob