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truly an incredible piece by stephanie young and juliana spahr, on the poetry prizes, the economy of favors, and the capitalist machine that will erode us all http://asapjournal.com/on-poets-and-prizes-juliana-spahr-and-stephanie-young/
this graphic of poetry prize winners is truly astonishing
"There are nine poets who have associations with all five awards: Glück, Wright, Conrad Aiken, Howard Nemerov, Mona Van Duyn, Richard Eberhart, Wilbur, Kunitz, and Merwin. These nine won 78 prizes and were involved in awarding almost half the prizes for poetry from 1948-2015."
"Our data also allowed us to see the degree to which literary excellence is yoked to higher education. Of those 429 winners, over half have a degree of some sort from a cluster of 8 schools: Harvard, Iowa, Stanford, Columbia, Yale, NYU, Berkeley, and Princeton."
Despite attempts by literary institutions to escape the economy of favors by, for example, relying on large committees, the economy of favors remains. This has a lot to do with the time-honored tradition of winners becoming judges. 41% of prizewinning poets also serve as judges.
anyway, read the article, it's brilliant & so thoroughly researched (over years), and the findings are eye-opening, even if not surprising, esp. in a year where we are rethinking the scarcity model of poetry prizes.
