The John Newlove Award

First the "award winning" poem, then my thoughts.

at the pizzeria : 100% real juice

( to J. Barlow’s once poetics )

cut loose th’ guywires

dull grey-braided

& steel’d

lily put grave

pompous scalpel voice :

de- / viners / finers / viders

( lovers plead tears )

pass the salt, shaker / no, it’s not on the menu

act - u - ally

yr bald head look leads

to a dependence on barber - tuates

jus’ saying

screw the fili-greed

micro sculpted

virile evanescent

puzzling wonders –

OK?!

weal me not

into redemption

&

devour us our pizza

© Roland Prevost

"[The winning poem] makes its references deft and plays in language in a kind of delight, without completing thoughts on behalf of the reader or steering the reader or telling the reader what to think... which leaves space for the reader to be delighted too. Tis a poem that is fully realized: intention and execution coincide." – Erin Mouré, Judge

I am absolutely astounded at the decision to award Ronald Prevost with the 2006 Newlove award. While I have not read any of the other entries, I find little reason in why exactly the aforementioned poem should have received and praise The judge, Erin Mouré (an apparently well-established Canadian poet and translator), provided irrefutably insufficient evidence as to why she chose such a non-poem to receive an award previously given to excellent writers such as Mellissa Upfold. Have we become so jaded as to forget poetry – and art for that matter – is?

I would like to address the judge’s first criteria of excellence, that of delightful wordplay. While I do understand the importance of challenging notions of authority in terms of language and proper spelling, one cannot underestimate the value of actual words. The piece contains almost as many dissections of words as it does actual ones. How can one discern meaning from a work if one cannot make out the words themselves?

Secondly, how can one attribute merit to a piece on the grounds that it does not complete thoughts? Virgina Woolf cannot even be invoked in defense here. Mrs. Dalloway, despite being of the innovative stream of consciousness style, actually contained mostly complete thoughts. In fact, I would even go so far as to suggest that there are fewer ellipsised thoughts than complete ones. Though we do live in an attention-deficit-disorder age there is no reason why we should laud poetry as unfocused and manic as Prevost’s. It would be much like commending a painter for only partially completing a painting so as to allow the viewer to mentally fill in the white. Is not one of the fundamental principles of art to show one’s audience the world as the one sees it? This piece does not even paint a half-picture so as to allow for a broader interpretation – it has demonstrated the author’s inability to show anything other than holes. The reader should not be left delighted (as I, a reader, most certainly was not); rather there should be a bitter sentiment of being ripped-off: Prevost has not in any way finished anything nor has he really shown us anything than a muddle of pizza and bald heads.

I would like to conclude that this poem has not been realised nor executed, unless Prevost’s intention was for nobody to understand anything and for nothing to happen or be seen. Quite simply, this is as far from a work of art as possible and should be used as kindling or Kleenex.