Public Notice - Complaints and Abolition of Writing Competitions

'The standard of Creative Writing in the United Kingdom and among the literary elites in Nigeria is astronomically high. I stand with the decisions made by the judges but apologise to all those who weren't shortlisted.'

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B. James.

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My just-concluded Poetry Competition has faced criticism for the outcome, with some Nigerian contestants suggesting the winning poems are not metaphysical but instead used imagism.

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Some critics have also questioned the judges' criteria and why their poem didn’t win.

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Here's a more detailed look at the complaints:

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• What constitutes poetry?

Some critics argue that the winning poems favour imagery, ‘contemporary poets make use of imagism more.’ 

Feedback from an Unnamed Participant:

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 ‘I notice that the major trend in Nigerian poetry is imagery, which is a good one. Nigerians have neglected deep poetry, which involves philosophy and the ability to think deeply. I wonder why Nigerians are not exploring metaphysical poems, poems I love the most. I am not saying Nigerians should like or write it because I like it, but they should also explore it. Our main focus is nothing but imagery.  

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     My question now is: "What’s the psychological effect of the imagery? Is it just to visualize without gaining? What about metaphysical poems that give room for critical thinking, thereby making people improve intellectually?" I perused contemporary Nigerian poets and saw their use of imagery. Look at poets like Wole Soyinka and Christopher Okigbo (of blessed memory) and see how they refined their poems into metaphysical poems. These two poets have contributed much to poetry in Nigeria.’  [SIC]

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Excerpt of Feedback from an Anonymous Participant:

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"The Judge’s Feedback Is Nothing but A Cluster of Contradictions

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Because if it is the latter, then what happened to anonymity in the judging process? What happened to fairness? And what exactly does it reveal about the systems behind this so-called merit-based selection?

Is the true scandal not that the poem was redacted — but that it was recognized and rejected because it was too capable, too confrontational, too unwilling to perform a cliché?

I Deserve Answers and Clarity, please.

If the poem evolved — from what the judge calls “neonate” to “teenager” to “near-proper articulation” — isn’t that what good poetry does?

Isn’t that what it means to use a first-person singular voice in a nature poem — to show the evolution of grief, of growth, of the human condition in dialogue with decay, time and the earth?

You asked us to show personal experience in relationship with nature. I did.

You asked us to speak in our voice. I did.

You asked us to be vulnerable, urgent, and real. I was.

And yet the very thing you asked for, when delivered with precision, was reduced to a dismissal — as if craft and clarity became crimes.

So, yes — I ask again:

If a poet shows range, why is that suspicious rather than celebrated?

If a poem evolves, why is that seen as inconsistency rather than intention?

If a poet shocks with articulation, is that not achievement?

If a poem carries influence, is that not proof of its depth, not its falseness?

Your feedback — as it stands — is more about your own discomfort than about my poem’s deficiencies.

And I will not allow that discomfort to be passed off as objective critique.

I deserve honest answers. I deserve literary transparency. I deserve better. I deserve to know where there is need for improvements not just a character assassination as the reasons why my sleepless nights of researching, writing, proofreading editing and rewriting would be trash and called a theft just like that.

And so do all poets who dare to craft truth with trembling hands and unyielding tongues.

On Submission Guidelines vs. Judging Criteria

It is true that I can't be a judge in my own case but I you recall.

The call for submissions was clear: write a first-person poem showing the relationship between personal identity and nature. You asked for exploration, risk, emotional and ecological truth.

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My poem, in form and function, embodied all of this. Through metaphor and surreal imagery, it charted the decay of a father’s memory through the image of a termite-infested log — using the earth, garden and bark to hold the trauma of grief and masculinity.

So what changed? Why were poets penalized for not sounding familiar, for pushing boundaries, for being raw?

If the real winning criteria became “poems that could be published in a UK-based collection,” then please say so long before the compete ends. But let's not pretend this edition was one of merit, when it was clearly one of preference.

Dear B. James,

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Thank you for your message regarding the removal of my poem xxxxxx from the Soil Unfurling from Stem anthology.

 I write this not out of bitterness, but out of the need for clarity, dignity, and truth. What has occurred — both in the redaction process and the judging feedback — deserves a sincere, critical examination.

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You stated that my poem, despite being initially shortlisted and offered a contract (which has restrained me from considering other magazines, “just wasn’t ready” for publication, citing issues with structure, language, grammar, and judge/panel comments. You also admitted that after re-reading the manuscript, some poems were ‘excoriated’ to strike a balance or due to changing editorial judgment.

Respectfully, I must ask: Which of these was the real reason — craft, or curation convenience?

If it was simply a matter of reducing the collection from 110 to 68 poems (60 as at now), and prioritizing existing networks or voices that align more closely with your own editorial preferences, that would be one thing — unfortunate, but honest. But what I received instead was a dismissal cloaked in vague generalities, and more troublingly, a judge’s feedback that reads more like an attack on my identity than a critique of my craft. A profiling and insult on my person rather than a review of my poem, a character assassination of the highest order."

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• Outcome:

I will no longer run competitions but offer a Writer’s Grant of up to $100 instead. 

I wish  to congratulate the winners again. The best entries were chosen.

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