I’ve taken on the task of judging the Slingink Scribbling Slam, along with Jeff Jeppesen and Robin Sue Herrnfeld, as you may know from an earlier post. And I must say that judging poetry is a lot more tough than writing them!
We are on the second round of poems now. I’ve already printed out my batch, like I did the last time. And this time too, I’ll be taking those sheets of paper with me to the dining table, to the couch before the TV and for my evening walks. The reason being I need to live with these poems in order to understand them better and hopefully be a fair judge.
Poems have this knack of lighting up one facet that you’d never noticed before, despite that first, second and third reading. Then there is the problem of two or more poems that seem to be on equal footing. What do you do? Nitpick, obviously!
Sometimes you come a cross a poem that you love for its theme or imagery, but alas can’t give more marks to because of certain poetic flaws; sometimes you get a great poem in the making, which is sad as far as the contest goes, but you hope that the poet will not lose hope and work on the poem afterwards.
The whole process is rather unnerving and humbling too. Here you are, a small person, and you have to sit in judgement on other people’s creative works. You want to be completely fair and honest about the whole thing; you don’t want to let anything slip past your fingers; you want to make sure that your reasons (for the marks etc.) are perfectly reasonable.
And then, you have to be aware of that elusive thing, which ultimately skews the scales in favour one over the next - your personal tastes and sensibilities. That is what some would call luck. That’s the choice made between two equal poems, when there’s place for only one (followed by the rest in descending order). No matter how hard you try, that matter of personal taste will always be the decisive factor. Creativity is a subjective arena, after all.
As for me, I know that while I’m at it, I am gettinbg better at my poetic craft. It’s a learning process, and like all such processes, it’s unnerving. Wish me luck!