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May 23
2007

Foetry closes up shop

Posted by stevenl in World Wide WebPoetryContests

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 Thanks Alan Cordle and Foetry.com! 

If you weren't aware foetry.com (whose dedicated members doggedly pursue cronyism and cheats in the pobiz) has closed up shop. In there three years, foetry.com exposed some major universities, publishers, and well-known poets who were involved in contests and complicit in rigged contests-causing students, friends, and lovers to win.

This caught me off guard. Indeed, while posting seemed to be down on the site, no one thought they'd cease operations. Heck -- it had been months since I'd even posted.

This is from Feotry's site:

We would like to thank all of our members who helped Foetry.com pursue its mission by providing information, research, intelligent discussion and debate, by writing letters, raising consciousness, and by lifting up the voice of ethics and outrage the PoBiz has disenfranchised.

...

We believewe have made an impact on the PoBiz and helped bring some much needed attention to the fraud, favor-trading, and corruption that have led to the marginalization and commodification of American poetry and the homogenization of its poets.

Foetry.com has done all it can do in its present form. It has chiseled a small crack in the façade of the academic poetry industry, and allowed people to peer in on the poet-making machinery. What we saw was almost universally dissatisfying. But we were not all of one mind regarding what to do about this dissatisfaction. We, as poets, had never dealt with issues of ethics, activism, and philosophy before . . . not within our own little space of ambitions and inspirations and pecking orders. Not within our own tribe.

It's always hard to see clearly how one's own tribe functions. We are still trying to understand the relationships among personal ambition, tribal order, and money-flow (in the PoBiz). Foetry.com has helped us realize that these relationships and their long-term impacts cannot be left in the shadow of our ignorance. Not if the art (as opposed to merely the product) of poetry is to survive.

But the subtler understanding of these relationships and their impact on the social order of poets as well as on the artistic quality and self-definition of American poetry is still slowly evolving. Our tribe (American poets and PoBiz consumers), has not decided if or how to come out of its cave yet. But that small puncture in the wall made by Foetry.com and the many others who have raised their voices against the current system of poetry production (the PoBiz) is letting a little light in.

...

Until that time comes, find a way to keep fighting the good fight. Don't give up. Don't expect someone else to do it for you. Believe in the value of your voice, in your outrage, in your desire for change. In your ability to make things happen.

Anyway—you can check out the site here.


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