Every year, the New England Poetry Club (NEPC) holds two contests for books of poems published in the last two years. The Sheila Margaret Motton Book Prize competition – for full length poetry collections – is judged by the NEPC board. Like the Jean Pedrick Chapbook Prize, it offers a cash prize, a reading, and publication in an online anthology.
How does an organization’s whole board judge a book competition?
This ambitious task is daunting for its logistics alone. Thirteen readers circulated submissions among themselves over a period of two months. On August first, we judges gathered in person, with all the books before us, to create a short list, then further refine our evaluations of our most favored books.
Quantitative measurements, however, don’t do justice either to our group process or to the individual experience of deep immersion in contemporary poetry. Though perhaps overwhelmed at times, we were variously enthralled, puzzled, challenged and enchanted by these poetic voices in their varied manifestations of craft. We read and re-read, took notes – and some of us came to judgment day with our own ideas of which books merited top places.
Our four-hour final session was a splendid experience. We discussed process, we read poems out loud to each other, we advocated for the merits of the collections which spoke most to us as individuals. Our discussions enhanced our own readings and helped us through the difficult final decisions about rating these books collectively, on behalf of an organization.
NEPC will hold its prize winners’ reading on Sunday, October 2, at 3 pm on Zoom. The authors of the Motton prize books (first place and honorable mentions) as well as winners of NEPC’s other annual competitions will be participating. Please plan to join us, and make your own assessments – and think about how you might be more deeply involved in NEPC’s mission to expand poetry’s reach, to nurture poets, and to build a community for lovers and writers of poetry.