So-and-So

Perhaps in simple fairness we ought also to listen to the other side in the ongoing dispute between Foetry and those it accuses of malfeasance in the judging of literary contests. Janet Holmes (her blog is called Humanophone) administers the Sawtooth Poetry Prize at Boise State University. She writes:

Foetry runs on the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy, under which something following an event is believed to be the result of that event. So-and-so went to Iowa and won a prize from a famous judge; therefore So-and-so won the prize because the famous judge is now associated with Iowa. So-and-so took a class with a judge ten years ago; the judge and So-and-so must have had an ongoing relationship that led to the judge's choice of So-and-so's manuscript in a contest. To people who lose the contest, such things are tempting excuses for their own failures to win--but they're not conclusive evidence. The sort of harrassment that Steve Mueske's undergoing right now from Irina Renata Dumitrascu does not seem designed to ensure "honest contests"; on the contrary, it seems designed to diminish publishing ventures through intimidation of those who run them. It's not a noble pursuit, it's terroristic, and the losers are the very poets Foetry claims to "protect."

I am no fan of poetry and fiction contests (as this post attests), but I must say that Foetry has seemed to have adopted a scorched-earth policy on the issue.

Comments

[faux]

Hi and thanks for posting about Foetry. Just because Professor Holmes says something doesn't make it true. We believe she paid a personal injury lawyer $150 for that two-bit Latin phrase she's batting around. None of her "so and so" examples are real examples. We hope you'll read why Janet Holmes is perhaps the most defensive of all the Jr. Foets.

Try the link to the contest she oversees at BSU: http://foetry.com/sawtooth.html

and the discussion area about her contest:
http://foetry.com/bb/viewforum.php?f=58

It will give your readers some insight into her unethical practices, and demonstrate why one of our forum members refers to her as Holmezilla.

[throatwobbler]

It's easy enough for contests to avoid any unwanted press by stating in the rules that former students/colleagues/etc. of the judge(s) cannot enter.
I have to question the pride of any writer who would submit to a contest with a former teacher or mentor as judge. You're just asking to be labeled a cheat. If your stuff's so good, why risk it?
However, I've heard (secondhand) that some contests agree to allow a judge to bring in a student's work as one of the terms of employment. Scummery, no?

[Hi]

I'm reluctant to touch this with a pole less than ten feet in length, but it seems to me that the ULA-like position in reaction to the "establishment" and its perceived insularity falls afoul of the Marxist (Groucho, that is) tenet concerning not wanting to join any club that would have one as a member.

I would say that if the process of being rejected or accepted for publication is inherently unfair--in my experience, there are many reasons one is not published, a good percentage of which are stupid--the process of awarding grants, fellowships, awards, and prizes is even more unfair, and possibly more stupid. It is also a highly subjective process, and one into which what one could perceive as conflicts invariably obtrude. Ultimately, you have to realize that you're dealing with a tiny circumscribed world in which a lot of the people know one another, or privilege a degree from a certain college, or feel that a candidate's publication history ratifies a decision one might make concerning whether or not to award a prize, grant, or fellowship. This is as true of many major awards as it is of smaller awards.

[Michael Hoerman]

Janet Holmes, the director of a creative writing program, posted a hodgepodge of real and exaggerated biographical information about me on her website in an attempt to malign me, calling me a "candidate for the identity of Foetry." She was clever not to use my name, but she then engaged in a whispering campaign with other poets where she gave it, leading one of those poets to publicly name me as either Foetry Himself or at the very least somebody who posts to the site. Janet was wrong; those she nudged to accuse me were. What remains to be seen is damage. It's too early to measure. I am predicting some, though, because at least one anonymous poster on the website of the person Janet souped-up threatened to censure me if s/he was ever on a selection committee for a job or an award I sought. After I have more opportunity to measure the impact, I'll consider all my options. Some people say the McCarthy hearings accomplished what they set out to do because even though most allegations were proved wrong, it was not without damage to lives and reputations. Nowadays, with people like Janet Holmes acting more like an Ann Coulter than an artist, crossdressers don't have to do the dirty work. They must be relieved.

[Michael Hoerman]

In reading your citation of Janet Holmes's post on the "post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy" (the same post at her site where she calls me a candidate for Foetry), I suddenly remembered an email she wrote to me on 12/27 (before she decided I was Foetry Incarnate).

On 12/27/2004 Holmes wrote (excerpt)

"I (in fact) was the person who lost out to "Enola Gay" for the National Poetry Series, receiving a call from them to say that Jorie Graham thought my manuscript was next best. (She was sleeping with the winner. I didn't know it at the time.)"

Looks like she knows the "post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy" from firsthand experience. An example of it, she says, is when someone who lost a contest says "the judge and So-and-so must have had an ongoing relationship that led to the judge's choice of So-and-so's manuscript in a contest."

So that I am Foetry is not the only fallacy she needs to get over.

[Janet]

Michael Hoerman's campaign against me (and Foetry's, for that matter) is nasty and relentless. If he's not part of that website--and I have reason to doubt his denial--he certainly has the same rhetoric and malice. The Sawtooth Contest has been run four times: the second time, our judge, Joe Wenderoth, selected a manuscript by someone he knew. He said it was because we had no rule prohibiting him from doing so; we added that rule in the next year and it hasn't been an issue since.

At Foetry, this has been the cause for immense vitriol. The website began an e-mail campaign to have me removed from my job for "mail fraud," sending spam e-mails to Boise State's President, provost, Dean of Arts and Sciences, and attorney; they added in the Idaho Attorney General for good measure. Because the letters were inane (they basically called me names, and offered no proof of their allegations), the University banned e-mail from them from entering the University mail system. Foetry urged poets not to enter the Sawtooth contest because it was "corrupt," but our submissions actually soared this year. None of our finalists (or entrants, for that matter) has ever challenged the results of a competition.

I run a poetry press and teach in a state university, and do not have the time or inclination to lead conspiracies against people like Michael Hoerman. I know that he's harassed poets in the past using methods very similar to those Foetry is using against me (and he acknowledges this), and that makes me suspicious of his denials in my case. I've done nothing to him or to anyone else that justifies the behavior of him or of the Foetry gang, except published books that are not authored by them.

As for my letters which Michael quotes (knowing it's illegal to do so without my permission): he leaves out the gist of our exchange, which is that despite losing that contest, I did not feel the need to rail against the system or the people in it. I was attempting to persuade him that poetry is no different from any other world--people know each other as a result of participating in it, and that in itself is not a bad thing.

I have indeed hired a lawyer, since my reputation and employment have been assailed by the libels on the Foetry.com website. In an indication of their stances, both Hoerman and Foetry.com have blocked e-mails and forum entry from the firm. (Draw your own conclusions.) On the other hand, as a result of their attacks I have met and befriended a lot more poets than I'd have had reason to meet otherwise. I'm grateful for those associations because it reinforces my idea that the poetry community is actually about poetry, and that the publishing Ahsahta Press does is valuable in that world.

[Michael Hoerman]

My "campaign" against Janet Holmes (if you can call defending yourself against unfounded accusations a campaign) started on 2/24, four days after she named me as a candidate for foetry and encouraged other poets to out me. Prior to that day I never said anything positive or negative about her publicly, in fact, never said anything at all about her publicly. Time will tell on Janet. It's kinda already starting to. I'm glad she has found her attacks on me to facilitate finding and making more friends. Sounds like just the kind of thing Ann Coulter would say.

[Michael Hoerman]

This thread shows up in the first page of a Google search of my name. Therefore, I want to reply further here about the situation.

Not long after my last post here on 3/18/05, time did tell on a few people. The identity of the foetry.com administrator was inadvertently revealed in April 2005. That disclosure is a matter of public record.

Michael Hoerman