Not much time to post: the wheels are spinning and I’m feeling a little bit giddy. I have come across a question, however, that perhaps some kindly seasoned poet out there can answer.
I’m preparing a manuscript for entry into a number of first-book contests, and most of those contests quite reasonably go to considerable lengths to ensure anonymous evaluation of every submission. My problem, alas, is that one of my punchiest poems hinges on the revelation of my father’s name (and hence my own) in a New York Times obituary from 1884.
Is there some clever, conventional way to anonymize such a self-referential gesture? Or should I instead omit the poem from the manuscript altogether? I would hate to do it, as it helps to pin down one of my three sections, but I would really rather not find my submission summarily disqualified.
