Letters:

Thanks for writing. Wish you were here. But you can never possibly enter the ghostly nether world we inhabit. It would be too dangerous for the uninitiated. Please stand back, we may flip kick at any time.

Dear Poets and Publishers,

The Board of the National Magazine Awards Foundation met yesterday and voted to re-instate the poetry category for this year's awards. Once again, I thank you for your heartfelt encouragement for us to bestow this prize. 

We are very late in the process for this year's awards so the deadline for entering will be March 16th. 

Please go to our web site www.magazine-awards.com on Monday for details on >how to enter for this year's awards. 

Again, please accept my thanks for the time and effort you took to make us aware of the importance of this award to the community. 

Sincerely, 
Terry Sellwood

January 16th, 2004: from Paul Vermeersch (Poetry editor of Insomniac Press) 

Dear Mr. Sellwood, [in response to the letter below]

Thank you for taking the time to respond to the grievances expressed by those of us in the poetry and publishing communities who were outraged over the cancellation of the poetry award at the NMA's. 

I would like to point out that the reasons for cutting the award in the first place were never adequately explained. The reasons mentioned on the NMAF website were unclear at best and erroneous at worst. 

Furthermore, that the poetry category seemed to be dropped in order to expand the categories for service journalism reveals the troubling tendency to sacrifice the arts in favour of corporate concerns in our nation's print culture, even when it comes time to recognize the best writing published in Canada's magazines. 

I hope these issues will be addressed when the board once again turns its attention the unfortunately dismissed poetry category. 

Sincerely,
Paul Vermeersch

Dear Poets and Publishers,

Thank you for your letters and your reasoned comments on our decision to not >award a poetry prize this year. I can hear your disappointment and outrage loud and clear and appreciate the time you have taken to voice your concerns. 

Unfortunately, it is not possible to reverse this decision for this year. However, the NMAF judging committee does review the categories after the awards every year and we will be doing so again this summer. 

I am going to ask Conan Tobias to form a small delegation and make a presentation to the board to reinstate this prize for next year. I will also assure you that I will personally do what I can to get this prize re-instated.

Our board is comprised totally of volunteers who give generously of their time to keep the awards happening year after year. We are always looking for volunteers to help with our committees, including the judging committee, and as with all volunteer organizations, there never seems to be enough time, people or money to go around. 

Again, please accept my thanks for the time and effort you took to make us aware of the importance of this award to the community. 

Sincerely,
Terry Sellwood
President
NMAF

January 8th, 2004: from Catherine Bush (author)

To George/Book Ninja,

Just read the piece on the Upper Canada Award's demise. Upper Canada was bought out by Sleeman's recently.  I'm presuming the award was started in the days when U.C. was still its own brand.  Upper Canada showed strong support for the arts across the board.  Sleeman fired most/all of the folks involved in-house in promoting the arts. They  have all/most been hired by Steam Whistle Brewing. So this is also a story of corporate takeover and its implications, a fact which doesn't seem acknowledged in your press release. (Perhaps someone should approach Steam Whistle about reinstating the award.) 

Happy New Year to you guys. 

Catherine Bush

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That's one less beer to drink, the bastards!  (It's BudLight from now on!)  Good thing you're out there, G.  You're right to ask "where the hell's the rest of the media?!"

Adam Seelig

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December 5th, 2003: from Matthew Holmes (Associate Editor, Arc Magazine)

Dear Terry,

I'm sure by now you've been exposed to the many arguments against the cancellation of the NMA poetry category. I will not go into great detail here reiterating them for you. 

However, what I would like to say is that the decision seems to have been taken in haste, and without the appearance of consultation within the publishing industry that one would expect.  The public reaction already showing up on the web, and the plans being made to protest this decision at the journal and personal levels that I am aware of, are both an unfortunate bit of bad press for the NMAF and show the degree to which people respected the awards that you previously gave in the poetry category.

I urge you, as a reader of poetry magazines in Canada as well as a writer and an editor, to reinstate the poetry category immediately.  Counter to the rationale for your decision posted on your web site, the NMA in poetry stood out among the few other national awards at the journal level (most of which, I should add, serve the secondary purpose of bolstering the annual subscriber-base of the magazines and are thus quite different in nature than an award such as that given by the NMAF).

Trusting you will reconsider,

Matthew Holmes, Associate Editor
Arc: Canada's National Poetry Magazine

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December 5th, 2003: from Paul Vermeersch (Poet and Poetry Editor, Insomniac Press)

Dear Mr. Terry Sellwood, National Magazine Awards Foundation President, and the National Magazine Awards Foundation board of directors,

I wish to add my voice to what is no doubt a growing chorus. The decision to omit the poetry category from the National Magazine Awards this year is both shortsighted and unfortunate. The reasons outlined on the NMAF website for this omission are imprecise and unconvincing. While it's true a majority of Canadian magazines does not publish poetry, the same can be said for many of the other award categories. Is it not also true that a 'majority' of Canadian magazines does not publish humour writing, scientific articles, medical articles, fiction, travel stories, and service journalism? Still, all of these forms of writing are significant elements of Canadian magazine publishing, as is poetry. 

Here is a list, however incomplete, of Canadian magazines that publish poetry on a regular basis: The Antigonish Review, Arc, Brick, The Capilano Review, The Claremont Review, Carousel, Contemporary Verse 2, Dandelion, Descant, Event, Exile, The Fiddlehead, Filling Station, Grain, Harpweaver, Lichen, The Literary Review of Canada, Maisonneuve, The Malahat Review, Matrix, The New Quarterly, Pagitica, Pottersfield Portfolio, Prairie Fire, The Prairie Journal of Canadian Literature, PRISM International, Queen Street Quarterly, Qwerty, Rampike, Room of One's Own, subTERRAIN, Taddle Creek, Tessera, TickleAce, West Coast Line, and the Windsor Review. I recommend reading one of these magazines at your earliest possible convenience.

Without a doubt, the combined bulk of the magazines named above, and those still not named, amounts to more than a mere blip on the Canadian magazine publishing radar. 

Perhaps the NMAF board of directors believes that poetry is too specialized a subject to appeal to the general population, and therefore an award for excellent poetry published in Canadian magazines is unwarranted. But isn't specialization the essence of most magazines?  Mr. Sellwood, apart from being president of the National Magazine Award Foundation, are you not also the general manager of Cottage Life Magazine. Surely, a majority of Canadians do not own, or even spend considerable amounts of time in, cottages. Should articles about the cottage lifestyle also be dropped from the awards?

In truth, poetry is a vital ingredient in Canada's cultural character, and the numerous Canadian magazines that publish poetry are evidence of a dynamic national literature alive with a variety of energies and interests. Canada's literary periodicals comprise the front line of our country's literary history-in-the-making. Canada's most esteemed writers and poets continue to publish their work in 'little' magazines, alongside a new generation of their successors. I wish to reiterate that the NMAF's decision to not recognize the contribution these magazines, and poets, make to our country's heritage is regrettable. 

I sincerely hope the members of the NMAF's board of directors will come to their senses and overturn the cancellation of the poetry category as soon as possible. 

Sincerely,
Paul Vermeersch

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December 4th, 2003: from Silas White (Editor, Nightwood Editions and Member of the National Poetry Month Committee)

Dear Mr. Sellwood,

I was shocked to read of the decision to discontinue the National Magazine Award for Poetry. The claim that "the vast majority of Canadian magazines do not publish poetry" seems "vastly" objectionable to me. By "vast" are we talking about 90%, even 75%? This contention sounds highly doubtful to me, and I'd be interested in seeing the actual numbers behind it.

It is my impression that quite a considerable amount of Canadian magazines publish poetry, especially compared to the number of magazines that focus on other award-worthy subjects such as business, or health and medicine. I'd estimate that a far larger percentage of poetry fills the pages of Canadian magazines than fills the collected pages of an annual output of Canadian books -- yet Canadian book writers and publishers do receive well-deserved awards for poetry.

And it is important to make this distinction from books, for is it not one of the founding overall principles of the awards that magazine publishing and writing SPECIFICALLY deserves recognition? If it wasn't, arguments can be made that the fiction award or any of the non-fiction awards are irrelevant because "other national awards programs exist" for their basic genres. How is poetry any different? The practice of publishing poetry in magazines is an extremely separate entity from book publishing, or for that matter not publishing at all, and the National Magazine Awards have in the past been very perceptive and astute in recognizing this.

Finally and most importantly, this decision is extremely detrimental to the National Magazine Awards' role in celebrating the breadth and diversity of Canadian magazines. Perhaps there are many Canadian magazines that do not publish poetry, but there are also dozens of literary magazines in this country that do not publish investigative journalism, pieces on science and technology, profiles etc. In fact, on a quick count of the awards presented last year, only two or three (most prominently the poetry award) could possibly apply to our country's dozens of literary magazines. Does the National Magazine Awards intend to limit its awards to only those that Toronto Life is eligible for?

It is misguided and incongruous to begin limiting awards categories to publications that receive substantial advertising revenue, while still claiming to be supportive and representative of "smaller magazines" that so genuinely and passionately demonstrate the spirit of magazine publishing in Canada.

Cancelling the National Magazine Award for Poetry will only go down as a severe blow to your program's aims. I urge the National Magazine Awards Foundation to reinstate it.

Silas White
Managing Editor, Nightwood Editions

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December 2nd, 2003: from John Degen (Poet, Editor, and Chair of the National Poetry Month Committee)

Letter responding to the National Magazine Awards Foundation's announcement that they are removing poetry as a category for the upcoming awards: 

Dear Terry Sellwood, President, and the entire National Magazine Awards Foundation Board,

As Chair of the National Poetry Month Committee, a volunteer body charged with promoting and marketing poets, poetry books and poetry in general across the country, I was terribly disappointed to learn of your decision to cancel the poetry category for the upcoming awards. As a finalist for the NMA poetry award last year, I am insulted and angered. I not only attended the awards ceremony at the Carlu last May, but I bought a rather pricey ticket for my wife as well. I was gratified to hear loud and overwhelming applause from all my magazine friends and colleagues in the audience when my name was announced, and I was suitably thrilled to receive my Honourable Mention certificate, which now hangs above my desk at home where I write most of my poetry. 

Poetry is a difficult enough endeavour in this country, what with decreased funding and a perceived small market for poetry books, yet the last few years have seen Canadian poetry take great strides. We now have a national Parliamentary Poet Laureate, bringing our country's official appreciation for this most ancient literary art in line with Britain, the United States and New Zealand. Scott Griffin's generous Griffin Prize puts poets and poetry front and center in the media for at least one night a year, and also turns the world's eyes to Canadian poetry.  One of the past Griffin winners, Christian Bök, produced a collection that became a bona fide bestseller in Canadian bookstores, something virtually unheard of. For your organization to choose now to turn its back on the poetry published in so many fine Canadian magazines is a particularly inexplicable instance of cultural blindness. 

Your announcement implies that prizes like the Griffin will somehow take up the slack you have created for poetry with the cancellation of your award. The Griffin is a prize for book-length collections of poetry and to date has not seen an up-and-coming poet make the short list, let alone receive the prize. Its function, in fact, is to recognize and celebrate our great established poets, and it does so exceptionally well. The National Magazine Poetry Award, on the other hand, recognized excellence in a single publication of poetry, sometimes a single poem, and its short lists over the years have been filled with the best unknown and developing poetic talents in the country. Poets, and the magazines that publish them, received irreplaceable recognition from the NMA. With its removal there is no longer a high profile national award in place for the same constituency. 

You have also implied that since poetry is not published in the majority of Canadian magazines, it has lost relevance. Fully one quarter of the membership of the Canadian Magazine Publishers Association are poetry-publishing magazines, and many of these were founding members of that association, and of the foundation for which you all work. You are right, this does not represent a majority, but it is hardly an inconsequential minority. 

Your decision has baffled and saddened poets, poetry publishers and literary magazines across the country. I urge you to reconsider this decision and reinstate the poetry category immediately. 

Sincerely,

John Degen, Chair
National Poetry Month Committee

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August 30th, 2003: from Michael Bryson (editor of Danforth Review)

Enticed by promises buxom web mistresses (did someone say video download?) and a photo series featuring the Quill & Quire staff in fishnet stockings and moveable type, I naturally clickety-clicked quicker than Quicktime to bookninja.com -- the latest, and threatening to be best, non-bookish book site on the scrolling paged Web.

"Hey, Shogun!" I screamed. "Where's the flesh!" My linking lunked; my mouse lay flaccid, inert on its pad; I surfed and read, read and surfed. (Verily, much of interest. Not a swollen breast in sight.) Rumours of gargantuan genitalia failed ye -- and me. And yet, there was Darren Wershler-Henry asking the question that was on everyone's lips: "When are we going to give ourselves permission to write and read books like The Haunted Hillbilly without worrying about the CanCon level?" Fuck, yeah. When are we? CanCon.exe, the next variation on MSBlaster. Does CanCon have levels? One must ask. When are we going to discuss books without picking the CanCon scab?

Hey, Darbyshire. Hey, Murray. Listen, dudes. I'm counting on you to give us Canlit types something of lasting value. Like a roundtable on the state to Sky Gilbert's butt. And stop trying to broker peace between Bok and Starmine; it's hard enough getting a literary feud going in this country without Blue Helmets parachuting in on every minor dustup. How about something on the latest literary breakups -- and a sidebar on Musgrave's criminal husbands to provide historical context. And a corner for bashing Atwood. And nose shots of kid-popping poets. And an online forum dedicated to Martin Levin's ear canal. Weee! The truth is out there, and it looks a lot like Kenneth J. Harvey eating -- I mean, reading -- his own flesh.

A Canlit tabloid, that's what I'm looking for. Rumours of mass orgies at the League of Canadian Poets' AGM. Are they true? Did Northrop Frye predict it in The Bush Garden? Who knows? Who cares? There must be at least one desperate editorial assistant at M&S ready to pull back a dust jacket for your spy camera, don't you think? They're owned by Random House now. But weren't they always ... a crap shoot ... a wave of chaos like a night out at Grossman's with Purdy and Acron and Gwen MacEwen in that thing she used to wear when she was learning Swahili and preparing for her second round trip to Mars. It's all in Sullivan's book, I'm sure. The good old days. Or maybe that's just the memory of memory, the nostalgia of nostalgia ... oh, fuck it. Bring it on. It's welcome.

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