[Newspoetry] Another Dumb Question(tm)

[John Wason]

At 04:47 PM 07/16/2001 -0500, Nicolle Ruth Neulist wrote:

>John (and all, i guess...),
>it's not a stupid question...i wondered the same thing the first time i
>heard his name mentioned in a poem.  Ari Fleischer is a man, and he is
>George W. Bush's press secretary.  read his press briefings on
>www.whitehouse.gov, and hopefully you will agree that his trying to cover
>up for Dubya makes some of the stupidest and funniest reading
>around.  it's also great inspiration for newspoetry.
>i'm glad you liked my sonnet...thanks!
>
>nicky

*smile*  You're entirely welcome.  Since I got such a quick response to my
first Dumb Question(tm), I may as well ask another Dumb Question(tm).  

In the last newspoetry digest, which I trashed after reading it cursorily
because it was so long, what was all that stuff about the poetry contest in
Chicago?  Who posted that, and what was the point?  Isn't poetry more or
less inherently subjective?  Was the poem that won really such a horrible,
or even mediocre, poem?  Sure, there were only 3 judges in the final
process, but would the result necessarily have been different if there were
30 judges?  And what does writing about events that impact the poet's daily
life have to do with "political correctness"?  Should black people or poor
people not be allowed to win poetry contests?

The only thing I got out of it that made any sense was that the poet who won
seemed, according to the poster, to have some sort of personal relationship
with two of the three judges.  If true, that would be problematic.  But I
couldn't understand the rest of the rant at all.  Again, perhaps someone can
enlighten me.

John the Unenlightened