"The Executive Committee ...had chosen my poem, from a multitude, to be entered in its seventh annual poetry convention, which would be held...in Reno, Nevada.

The opening of “What Is Poetry? And Does It Pay?” Jake Silverstein’s smart-acre 2002 Harper’s essay about an asinine poetry convention in Reno, Nevada, that’s run by a vanity press:

“Summer in New Orleans is a long slow thing. Day and night, a heavy heat presides. Waiters stand idle at outdoor cafés, fanning themselves with menus. The tourists have disappeared, and the city’s main industry has gone with them. Throughout town the pinch is on. It is time to close the shutters and tie streamers to your air conditioner; to lie around and plot ways of scraping by that do not involve standing outside for periods of any length.

I was so occupied one humid afternoon when I came across a small newspaper notice that announced in large letters, ‘$25,000 poetry contest.’ ‘Have you written a poem?’ the notice began. I had written a poem. I had even considered submitting it to contests, but the prizes offered never amounted to much—a university might put up $100 in the name of a dead professor—and I hadn’t sent it off. This was a different proposition. With $25,000 I could pay off my debts, quit my jobs, and run the air on hi cool for a while. I submitted my poem that very day.

Two weeks later I had in my hands a letter from something calling itself the Famous Poets Society, based in Talent, Oregon. The Executive Committee of its distinguished Board of Directors, the letter informed me, had chosen my poem, from a multitude, to be entered in its seventh annual poetry convention, which would be held September 16–18 at John Ascuaga’s Nugget hotel and casino in Reno, Nevada. ‘Poets from all over the world will be there to enjoy your renown,’ the letter boasted, ‘including film superstar Tony Curtis.’

This was not exactly what I had imagined.”