The Boneyard

[Shelley Hansen]

David, when I heard your winning poem Each Morning When I First Awake read by Edna Harvey at the Queensland Championships last year (when the Bush Lantern was announced), I remember thinking what an innovative rhyme scheme you had used. I couldn't wait to read it myself and analyse it - which I've done many times since it appeared on the Poetry page. From my point of view it fits all the criteria for bush poetry - but I can see how its structure would challenge the concepts of some judges.

As most of us know, the Bush Lantern is a very hard competition to win because of its judging style - three judges working completely independently and anonymously. So there's no room for consensus - you have to capture all three judges individually to win the prize. I was fortunate enough to have two poems in the Top 20 in last year's competition. Interestingly, A Lesson in Life (which went on to win the Ipswich Feast) was scored high by two judges, but did not make the shortlist of the third judge, taking it out of the running for a prize. In the final analysis, there were just six poems which made the shortlist of all three judges.

It's an endlessly fascinating exercise for me to read judges' comments and feedback and to see the diversity in their approaches and preferences. It's all part of the beauty of our craft with its myriad of colours!

Cheers, Shelley

[David Campbell]

For those of you unfamiliar with the Bush Lantern judging process to which Shelley is referring, it’s worth going into some detail as it’s a classic example of the variability involved in judges’ decision-making.

The three judges independently select their top 20 poems, give them a mark out of 100, and send the results to the organisers, who tally the marks to get an overall rank order. Last year the judges separately ranked my poem first, second, and sixth. The second place-getter received eighth, third, and first, and the third place-getter was awarded second, fourth, and seventh. Shelley’s A Lesson in Life, which came seventh overall, received seventh, seventh, and wasn’t even included in the third judge’s top 20! As Shelley says, only six poems made the top 20 for all three judges, and it’s much the same each year. I can’t remember a winning poem being ranked first by all three judges.

Then there’s the matter of the marks allocated out of 100. As a judge, I hate having to do this as the numbers are so arbitrary. Last year one judge’s top mark (for my poem, fortunately) was 99.75, but one of the other judges gave a top mark of only 78.5. This figure is something of a puzzle, because it makes you wonder what a poet would have to do to get a mark in the 90s from him/her. The other judge gave a top mark of 95…to a poem which came eighth overall and wasn’t even included in another judge’s top 20! Overall, my poem received an aggregate mark of 264.25 (judges are encouraged to give quarter, half and three-quarter marks), with the second place-getter on 263.75, only half a mark behind. All of which emphasises the degree to which luck plays a part in final results. You can win with one judge, and not even make the top 20 with another.

So the lesson from this is to persevere if you think you have a good poem…if it fails, send it somewhere else. Sometimes a poem will need extra work and polishing, but the two poems of mine that I referred to earlier were not changed in any way between competitions. As Shelley says, following the twists and turns of the judging process is an “endlessly fascinating exercise”…albeit a perplexing one at times.

Cheers
David

[Shelley Hansen]

Especially when you happen to get feedback reports from two judges - both talking about the same poem - and one says "this poem needs a lot of work", while the other says "well structured and a story well told"!!!!!

I tend to not request judges' specific feedback any more - not that I don't want to learn - just that I get too confused

Onward and upward ...
Shelley

[Catherine Lee]

David this poem is superb - congratulations on yet another well deserved win for your outstanding skill and talent. I can imagine it must have really stood out Shelley!

This has also been an extremely interesting and informative discussion on judging and entering competitions, so thank you all very much for that. Terry is right in that many poets don't bother entering 'free' or 'open' comps because they feel it's like throwing their entry money away if they've written a rhyming one, so what you say is encouraging...and Maureen, I'd be happy to join your 'charge'!

[Shelley Hansen]

Hi Catherine - lovely to hear from you!

Yes, it is an interesting discussion. To add to the encouragement to enter open competitions with rhyming verse - I've twice been awarded equal first in the Adelaide Plains open comp - with rhyming poems in each case. One judge actually commented that she did not particularly like rhyming poetry, but for some reason mine captured her imagination! So you can be lucky sometimes

As David mentioned at the outset, I read, write and enjoy both rhyming and non-rhyming verse ... though I do feel at times my knowledge of the finer points of free verse may need some embellishment ... especially when I emerge from a reading session entirely bewildered

Mmm - the Ipswich Poetry Feast! Over 1100 entries last year, and it sounds like the competition will be just as hot as ever this year. I'd better ink up my pen and stir up the little grey cells (Maureen, I don't think you need to worry that the interest is waning!!)

Cheers, Shelley

[Catherine Lee]

Thank you Shelley - on both counts. Your poems must have been excellent to attract the eye of a judge who didn't particularly like rhyme, so congratulations on this major achievement! This is indeed very encouraging.

I know what you mean about emerging bewildered sometimes from reading free verse and understanding the finer points of it - for me, if I have to sit for ages trying to work out what someone actually means, a poem often loses its power to touch me. (As with everything though, it depends on the poem itself so I don't write it off).

[Shelley Hansen]

You are right Catherine - some free verse is definitely "off the planet". But then I guess we don't always like every example of rhyming poetry either, do we?

You might be interested to know that in the competition which I judged and awarded David the first prize, I awarded second and third prizes to free verse entries. The second prize one had the same effect on me as David's poem - I had to stop and walk away to think, before I read any more poems. There was no "wondering about the meaning" here - it was a powerful comparison about what ice means to us (a clink in a drink) versus what it means to an Antarctic penguin ... life. And as the ice melts in the glass - so the polar caps shrink. Very powerful.

The third prize winner was a delightful fantasy about the brashness of the Australian sun which jumps out of the pillow of the east with a fanfare, not giving the fairytale dawn any chance to weave its magic before the day heats up. An engaging word picture!

That's the beauty of our craft - we keep discovering true gems, old and new, don't we?

Cheers, Shelley

[Catherine Lee]

Thanks again Shelley - they sound like wonderful poems with enviable metaphors and similes. Yes indeed you are so right in that there are fabulous gems everywhere of any genre that can speak directly to the heart - I guess this is what makes poetry our passion!

[David Campbell]

Thank you, Catherine! I'm glad that this discussion has been useful...I suspect many people are often mystified (and frustrated!) by the results of competitions, and I've no doubt some of my decisions have left people shaking their heads in bewilderment. At least with rhyming verse we do have some fairly well-defined objective criteria to point to by way of justification. Free verse tends to be even more of a subjective thing when it comes to making judgements, as can be seen from the many differing viewpoints expressed on this site.

Shelley's comment about the judge who gave her an award despite not really liking rhyming verse is interesting. One of the problems with entering rhyming verse in open competitions is the prevalence of judges who don't understand or appreciate the difficulties involved in writing it. Sometimes they almost seem to put it in the same category as nursery rhymes...just a bit of childish fun. In other words, they don't take it seriously, either in terms of content or as an art form. That's the hurdle we have to overcome. I've just entered a rhyming poem in one of our best-known open competitions, one in which I've never seen anything other than free verse recognised. But, as they say, you've gotta be in it to win it!

Cheers
David

[Catherine Lee]

So true David - it is immensely frustrating when you come up against this 'nursery rhyme attitude', which seems exceedingly unfair considering the incredible amount of work that goes into writing and editing well crafted rhyming verse! I will 'watch this space' with your latest rhyming entry into an open comp and wish you the very best of luck!