The results are in and it’s a tie. Billy says
And yes, I did call the election a few hours early but with these 2 great poets locked in a photo finish and me with a real day job to go to early in the morning… Well, I made the rules and I can bend the rules.
Want to know a secret? Prior to their nominations I had never heard of either of the winners. But that’s exactly what the contest is all about– making a few poets you might have never heard of a little better known. To be perfectly honest, my pick lost.
So what did Sina and Robert win? Bragging rights and the responsibility to promote other lesser known poets through their blogs, websites, interviews, notes passed under the desks, streetplanes (Sorry, I couldn’t resist) or via any other means they wish. And if by chance we should ever actually meet in person I’ll spring for lunch.
So for those critics of the process… Get over it. We have 2 laureates this year. Everyone nominated deserved to win and in a small way they were all winners.
Yay, Billy. Love that attitude.
Good call. As he said, running that close, he’d probably have to do a recount and who has the time or desire for that.
It’s too bad that a few people being sour made the process less pleasant for everyone with the insertion of rants and blames.
The point is good fun and exploring pages of peers who are all on the side of poetry. Robert Lee Brewer has been blogging 3 years and has been at the centre of a groundswell that provides a platform where hundreds of new poets congregate and read each other and get a motivational boost. Each year his interviews and prompts get more of a following.
Sina Queyras has been blogging about poetry for 6 years and engaging at Harriot and commenting on other blogs to keep exploring the dialogue of what poetry is and what it is and can do. She has works in print, 3 poetry books of her own and one edited anthology. How sweet her story of her 80-year-old maternal aunt getting involved. “Poetry, she may not quite understand, or like, but votes–that she could do.”