The Jury Deliberates:

Alex: After last year's open jury I was a bit surprised that there were no significant disagreements. We weren't unanimous, but there was no contention about the favourites and the winner was pretty obvious. At the time I know it struck some people as a bit "suspicious," but in fact I think it was just a clear choice. As Zach put it: "I'd like to think that any more-or-less impartial jury, given these five books, would've come to the same conclusion we did."

To re-cap my own thoughts on this year's list: I would pick The Burning Alphabet. I know I said that it's a hard book not to like (that is, it's a sort of "pop poetry"), and that it's not as formally ambitious, but the thing is, it works. And in the final analysis I don't think it's any less intellectually complex, emotionally rich or poetically astute than the other books on this list. Indeed, quite the contrary. Dempster's hospital poems and meditations on the death of his father were easily the high-points of feeling this year, and his technique (in particular his use of imagery) was, quite consistently, the most effective and assured. If I could only recommend one of these books to a friend, there's no question in my mind that this would be it. It's also the book I look forward to reading again the most.

I found things to enjoy in both Over the Roofs of the World and Underwood Log. But I just wasn't as excited by them as I was by The Burning Alphabet. Senior was occasionally banal, and I was never quite sure what New's book was all about. He could also be monotonous. Processional I found to be unsteady and pretty dull. Little Theatres I passed on completely.

I think we all sort of agreed on the bottom of the list. But how do you rank the best?

Dani: I'm going to have to agree with you, Alex. I have to cast my vote for Dempster, though for a few short days, I thought New should take home the prize for his ambitious project. It was only tonight that I changed my mind. I was on the subway, not even thinking about the jury, when a few of Dempster's lines drifted back to me. He's obviously struck a stronger chord
with me than I first realized.

Alex, as you stated, he's the most consistently successful in his efforts. His imagery is sound and his references relatable. Again, it's easy to like this book. Another thing I love about Dempster is how he can interject humour at even the darkest of moments. He can be playful without being cutesy.

While I enjoyed Underwood Log and Over the Roofs of the World, they didn't root themselves as firmly in my brain as Dempster's book did. There were moments when I read The Burning Alphabet where I thought "Damn, I wish I would have written that!"

His book hasn't even made it to my shelf yet; it's still in my place of literary worship - my backpack.

Shane: This being the first time I’ve served on a jury, I would have liked to have learned something. And I have. 

The first thing is: not everyone agrees with me. My reactions on a couple of the books (the interminable Compton, the dead-rhyming, culture-as-a-crutch Senior, the half-baked intellectualism of Moure) were strong, and it’s interesting to see how you people agreed in a less forceful way on Compton/Moure and plain disagreed on Senior. It’s a challenge, really, knowing that there will be two other people who will read my opinion closely and perhaps think that it’s me that’s way off base, not the poetry under examination. I felt a little like I had to keep myself to a higher standard than when I normally do in a review, and that in itself has taught me a lesson: I should be keeping myself to that same standard all the time. Knowing that someone will look at what I’ve written, and knowing also that they’ll write back, has much higher stakes than my usual duties on Grub Street permit me. Being a reviewer is a mostly anonymous job, one never knows how one is being received. Having a special audience of two is both a pleasure and, well, a little scary.  Deep down I ask myself, what if they don’t agree with me? What if I’m wrong? Another lesson is: why should I care, and why does it matter what other people think? 

It wasn’t actually a lesson, really, but more of an affirmation: most of the books of poetry published in Canada are bad. The GG jury tried to find five this year that weren’t, and they failed. One can’t even say that the books failed memorably. For me, this shortlist was one big snooze. I don’t know if we’re supposed to mention other books that should have been considered, but for me missing Geoff Cook’s lovely Postscript, Carmine Starnino’s elegant With English Subtitles, and Zach Wells’ rugged Unsettled were big oversights. Not that I’m at all ignorant of why Starnino didn’t make the list, but that’s another story.

I know, I know. I’m supposed to stick with the task at hand: selecting a winner. Well, Compton’s an absolute No for me, as is Senior. Their very inclusion on this list makes me wonder at the validity of the whole Canada Council process. Moure I dislike, but am able to appreciate how she could appeal to other eggheads who like their poetry short and their theory long. That leaves New and Dempster, and I want to give points to New for the ambition of his long poem, but I have to recognize that it’s not, on the whole, very memorable. I’d give him an asterisk, really: nice try. Dempster I actually liked, but much of the book was too topical, too glib, to make an impression. It was quite an entertaining book, but only parts of it were moving (like the part about his father.) A good book, made to look better by the anemic state of its competition, but not a great one.

I guess what I’m looking for is a book I could hold up to someone in a foreign country, a book that could be an ambassador, a book I could show a friend and have them report back to me Larkin’s enormous Yes. A tall order, but consider how many books (144) were eligible this year! I've read many of the books from that list, a list symptomatic of an
ailment afflicting poetry in Canada: an overkill of ubiquitous boredom. It’s somehow sad that the only signs of life in this shortlist are New’s green pronouncements and Dempster’s riffs on pop culture.

For those who are wondering, I guess too that I should mention I made my decision BEFORE I became aware of the actual decision by the real jury. I read the books and formulated my opinions before I found out that - ack - Anne Compton was awarded the GG. Since I learned of the result, I’ve scratched my head and tried to figure out how any sane jury could pick her. I’m at a loss. Only a group of tone-deaf morons who mistake terse palaver for poetry, who fetishize boredom, who prefer weather and household appliances for action and deed, could like a book like that. The poetry’s so staid I can just imagine Poetry Voice coming down from the heavens, intoning each word with perfect mind-numbing intensity. A Voice that will no doubt be there on Gala night.

I figure the Canada Council deserves it.

It seems I disagree more with the real jury than with our cottage jury (we seem to favor New and Dempster,) and I wonder why that is, I wonder if the Canada Council somehow perverts the whole jury process . . . that if everything they touch somehow withers and dies . . . but perhaps that’s paranoid. Or just me thinking I’m right again.

Right. In the end, I’m going to side with the poetry I liked the best, not respected the most. I’m going with Dempster. He was entertaining and he had his moments. I still think he has a better book in him, though.

Alex: Well, then! Perversely . . . or suspiciously . . . or whatever, it looks like the jury this year is unanimous (despite all of our differences of opinion) for Dempster. He'll be going home with a big fat virtual cheque for $15,000. 

Anyhow, here are some of my final thoughts:

There was some good poetry on the shortlist this year. But the fact is, given that almost every poetry book that gets published these days is a collection of one-page free verse lyrics, it's hard to find a totally satisfying book. Hence the way we all fell back on saying that these poets had their "moments." I don't think there's anything particularly new in that. Most of the great poetry of the past that we read comes in the form of a posthumous critical selection, or pieces picked for an anthology. It's easy to get spoiled by only reading the hit singles. You lose sight of the fact that almost every great poet you can name published an enormous amount of junk along with those ten or fifteen poems (if that) that you remember.

I began by remarking how this year there were several poets who seemed to be trying to do something a little more. Unfortunately, I didn't think any of them were particularly successful. Which makes me think that maybe the long poem really is dead. Dempster's book was more typical of what we've come to expect from today's poetry. And even in his poetry, which I really did enjoy, there is an artificial terseness. For me the Holy Grail of great poetry is rhetorical ease, a sort of expansive conversational grace that we haven't heard from anyone for a while. Maybe that's gone too. Not surprising in the age of the soundbite.

Have these two juries had a gender bias? Both times we've picked men. This year we seem to have picked the two men (Dempster and New) as the best, with a split on Senior, and then the other two nominees (both women) at the bottom. Are we age-ist as well? I don't think we've had any jurors over 40. And both years there have been complaints about how dull a lot of this poetry is.

For what it's worth I can only say that I don't think great poetry has ever been dull. I feel electrified every time I read Donne and Browning and Wordsworth and Dickinson and Yeats. I only got the same sort of thrill out of a handful of poems here. Admittedly that's an unfair comparison, but it's one every writer has to live with. As for being sexist, I can only say that I did like Zwicky last year and Senior this year. I just didn't think they were the best.

As Shane notes, this year the "real" GG jury gave the prize to Anne Compton's Processional. Normally I'd just shrug my shoulders over this, but what's troubling is the fact that this is the second year they've blown the call. The last two winners of the GG poetry prize have been Roo Borson and Anne Compton, for two uninspired, and uninspiring, books. I don't think this is sending a good message. Is it politics? Maybe. Certainly our Runaway Juries have come to very different conclusions.

Dani: Like Shane, this is the first time that I've served on a jury. To be honest, I was a bit terrified. I've never reviewed a book before and it probably shows. I can say, however, that I read all five books front to back and gave the best opinions I could. Being on a jury made me wonder how other juries are chosen. Are they appointed? Do people beg to be on them? I'm not sure. However, I'm grateful that I had this opportunity, and it introduced me to some new writers and the reviewing styles of my two esteemed cottage jury colleagues.

And both of you were right, there was little excitement to the short list. There were other books I thought more interesting and persuasive. For instance, I thought that Goran Simic's From Sarajevo, With Sorrow should have been, at the very least, short-listed, if not given top prize. And while I don't typically read books from the experimentalist camp, I really
thought they should have had some sort of  representation. I guess that I felt that there should have been more variety and more tension.

I am, however, pleased that our jury settled on Dempster, although I'm floored that we all came to the same conclusion. I was confident that there would be at least one lone ranger on this jury.

Shane: I think the GG jury botches its task. There hasn't been a compelling winner in years (George Elliot Clarke was the last one in 2001, and there was a dry spell before that.) The only compensation is that good poetry needs no award, it has its own validity, and time will sort out the good from the bad, the temporary from the enduring. But really: Borson, and Compton? Is this the stuff we want to be remembered by? I'd like to think that on this alternate jury we're doing the right thing and picking the right book for the right reasons. One thing is certain: we have the moral high ground. Brand, Kroetch, and Hunter did all their horse-trading behind closed doors. We actually show the nuts and bolts of our evaluative process.
People can see through the glass, so to speak, while the real jury is locked up in its ivory tower. We're not only accountable for a choice, we're accountable for how that choice is made. Which makes me think: this jury is a wonderful idea, Alex, and though I know you don't mean for it to SHAME the GG, it does make for a good contrast, one that people can draw their own conclusions from.