[New-Poetry] Re: The Dangerfield Prize

[Crisman Cooley]

Great idea.  How do we start?

I'd been meaning to comment on the Dangerfield syndrome discussion on  
Humpo which I read and enjoyed when it first came to my attention a  
few months ago.  Many of the contributions were enlightening, clear,  
astute and even funny.  Seems one thing we learned in 20C novels,  
short stories & works for theatre, such as Ulysses, Gravity's Rainbow  
(Pynchon), Marat/Sade (Weiss), The Castle, Metamorphosis, Beckett's 3  
Novels and End Game, Happy Days and Godot, was that comedy can  
encompass tragedy, and not vice-versa.  I believe Joyce made a  
statement to this effect.  Among poems, only Prufrock and Waste Land  
seem to me to contain both tragic and comedic elements-- but as usual  
I must plead ignorance of a lot of contemporary poems.  I don't  
recall in the roundtable discussion much putting forward of poems  
that were examples of comedy.  This is precisely the hole in my  
knowledge I'd like to fill.

So my question to the group:  Which poets/poems should be nominated  
for the Dangerfield prize in the last 100 years?  the last 50 years?   
the last 10 years?



> Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2007 07:09:14 -0700
> From: "Rachel Loden" <r_loden at sbcglobal.net>
> Subject: [New-Poetry] The Dangerfield Prize and other musings


>> From http://wordstrumpet.blogspot.com/:
>
> would love to get your thoughts on the following on this list or at  
> the
> blog.
>
> But first, other recent posts:
>
> * The Ministry of Silly Walks : John Cleese on authority in comedy
>
> * Poetry, Heresy, and Delirium : how does a drive-in in Connecticut  
> connect
> to heresiology in contemporary poetry?
>
> * Another Kind of Heaven : chapbooks and why more libraries don't  
> buy them
>
>
> The Dangerfield Prize
>
> I'm naming this post after something completely chimerical, as real at
> present as /Nessiteras rhombopteryx/ (the Loch Ness monster) or other
> triumphs of cryptozoology. But the Dangerfield Prize, and prizes  
> like it,
> may have more going for them than cryptids like Nessie.
>
> Last month I mentioned the scholarship recently established for a  
> student
> graduating from first Canadian poet laureate George Bowering's old  
> high
> school in Oliver, British Columbia, who "must have a demonstrated  
> interest
> in writing and be a bit of a pain in the ass."
>
> This scholarship, as I said at the time, opens up all sorts of new
> imaginative vistas for awards. I'm forced to think about awards in  
> the fall,
> when I have to decide whether to nominate ten people (plus any  
> number of
> single works in journals or other small press publications) for the  
> Pushcart
> Prize. If I decide to participate, as I've done since 2002, my ten  
> nominees
> will get a letter from Pushcart asking them to send their own  
> selection from
> their 2007 small press-published work for consideration for the  
> next year's
> anthology. If I also nominate single pieces from magazines and  
> anthologies,
> the editors of those publications will get slightly different (but  
> similar)
> letters.
>
> If any of my nominees actually wins, they'll become contributing  
> editors as
> well and get to send in their own lists of nominations in future  
> years.
>
> So why do I have to think about whether to go through this drill?  
> Why isn't
> it more fun? Because since I've been doing it, only one of my  
> nominees has
> actually won a Pushcart. The sheer number of nominations pouring in to
> Pushcart's P.O. box in Wainscott, NY, is enormous and (do the math:  
> each
> year's winners become nominators) growing like kudzu every year. So  
> any
> individual nominee stands a vanishingly small chance of winning.
>
> On top of this, there's more than a small aesthetic difference  
> between my
> taste and that of the annually-chosen poetry editors. Bill  
> Henderson, who
> founded Pushcart because of his own frustrations with the literary
> establishment, is, I suspect, a sterling guy who's pursued his  
> mission with
> nothing short of heroism. Unfortunately, though, we don't happen to  
> be on
> the same page (for the most part) about what constitutes an  
> outstanding work
> of poetry in a given year.
>
> That, I think, is to be expected: these are /his/ awards, his  
> bailiwick, and
> his taste (and that of his chosen editors) rules the day. But as a  
> result I
> have to wonder: shall I really trouble, say, Rae Armantrout with  
> another
> nomination, when she's never won? Why should she bother to go  
> through the
> fairly onerous drill, only to lose yet again?
>
> Even worse, if I do nominate her again, and she puts herself  
> through those
> paces, doesn't she begin to associate me with the absurdity of it  
> all? Have
> I really done her a good turn, or have I wasted her time? Questions  
> like
> these have made me puzzle over my nominations year after year, never
> seriously considering some extremely worthy candidates because I  
> know they
> stand zero chance, and apologizing in advance to those I do  
> nominate for
> what may be a particularly thankless errand.
>
> All this, plus the fact that there is almost universal frustration  
> with
> awards of all kinds, has made me wonder: what's stopping any of us  
> from
> taking a page from Bowering's book, or Henderson's, and launching  
> our own
> awards?
>
> After all, there is actually no prize with a Pushcart Prize, other  
> than
> publication. The scholarship given in Bowering's name (though  
> probably not
> endowed from his personal kitty, though I don't have the inside  
> poop) is
> obviously something most of us can't dream of setting up. But even  
> if the
> prize loot were extremely modest indeed, or nonexistent -- other  
> than some
> sort of fuss made by announcement and (for example) publication of the
> winning work(s) somewhere -- wouldn't it, at the very least, make some
> deserving writer's day, and be an absolute hoot?
>
> And, if the standards exercised were rigorous enough -- or witty and
> cryptozoologically wild enough -- couldn't it become more than  
> that? Would
> it be ridiculous to hope that (in some small way) it could actually  
> help to
> shape the aesthetic environment of the times?
>
> That's why I'm musing on a still very-much-imaginary Dangerfield  
> Prize, and
> why I hope others will indulge in similar musings of their own.
>
> Rachel Loden
> http://wordstrumpet.blogspot.com/
>
>