Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/John Gallaher

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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep nancy (talk) 13:46, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] John Gallaher

John Gallaher (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) (delete) – (View log)

Article claims this is "a major American Contemporary poet," an assertion not backed up by cited sources or anything that can be discovered on Google, Google News, or Google Books. He has published two non-notable books on micro-presses, failing WP:BK. One of his publishers, Spuyten Duyvil, is nothing more than a one-man operation, a guy named Tod working from his kitchen table in Brooklyn. Qworty (talk) 21:07, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

  • Weak Delete; "a guy named Tod working from his kitchen table"? Is there something personal here? The article is almost certainly self-written, and I'm having trouble finding anything on his work on Google Scholar, or anything on Google not from the author or book readings. Only four copies of his works are held by LibraryThing users, for what little that's worth. Maybe someone more into modern poetry than I can proclaim him notable, but I don't see any evidence of that.--Prosfilaes (talk) 00:29, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
    • Comment: I still don't see it. Nominations to anything but really major awards doesn't really count. It doesn't really look like he's been noted, especially by people writing things that we could use to make an article. I think the emphasis on awards is misleading; the real question is can we produce an article on the subject from good reliable sources independent of the subject, and the answer here is no.--Prosfilaes (talk) 22:40, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. —David Eppstein (talk) 03:59, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment The article may well deserve deletion but I find the tone of the nomination a little disturbing: "a guy named Tod working from his kitchen table in Brooklyn." What's wrong with the name Tod, what have you got against Brooklyn and how do you know about his kitchen table? That said, the subject's resume appears fairly thin, although, being a mathematician, I don't know much about the going-ons in poetry. From what I do know, a lot of poetry is published by small publishers, so I am not sure how much to read into that. Here is a link to Spuyten Duyvil:[1] For what it's worth, both books are available from Barnes&Noble:[2] A Google search reveals that Gallaher's second book "The Little Book of Guesses, has been chosen by Henri Cole for the Levis Prize and will be published in 2007 by Four Way Books"[3] The WP article for the subject also says that he is an editor of something called "The Laurel Review". I don't know how much these things are worth, but I'd like to hear from some people more familiar with modern poetry before voting myself. Nsk92 (talk) 13:10, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete. Little evidence of notability. Tone of the prodder is irrelevent. Xxanthippe (talk) 11:56, 11 April 2008 (UTC).
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so that consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, KrakatoaKatie 03:17, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Weak keep, he was the subject of a 840 word feature in the St. Joseph News-Press (St. Joseph, MO). That's about all the significant coverage I can find. Jfire (talk) 03:37, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete. He's definitely getting published, but he doesn't seem particularly notable yet. The Levis Prize (not this one, but this one) is basically a promotional prize linked to a publisher. I can't find any evidence it's a notable prize. The Laurel Review doesn't have an article, though it's probably notable after 41 years, and is reasonably well-known, but doesn't confer notability to its staff. I say notability to come. --Dhartung | Talk 07:36, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
Dhartung, an explanation of the way contemporary poetry publishing works: almost all first, most second, and many third books are published through poetry contests. They're not "promotional prizes" but significant and serious considerations of hundreds and hundreds of poetry manuscripts. To win one is in itself notable, especially when it's awarded by a nationally distributed press which has survived for 15 years (a large achievement in America today where there's very little arts funding and where chain bookstores often don't stock anything but the most well-known (often dead) poets.) If you're looking for evidence that it's a notable prize, look at the list of judges, including the judge who selected Gallaher's work - Henri Cole. See here: http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/1083. lyttonjsmith —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.2.213.40 (talk) 16:53, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete per Dhartung's comments. Nsk92 (talk) 12:12, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
Changing to Unsure per Espresso Addict's comments. I still do not have much of a feeling about what goes on in the world of poetry and I am thinking of abstanining from further voting in this AfD. The prizes/awards that Espresso Addict mentions mean something, but I don't really know what to make of this information. The Walt Whitman Award appears to be a well-established prize, but for junior poets only, limited to those who have not yet published a book. I personally have no idea what the other awards are (they do appear to be awards for junior writers as well, although I may be wrong here). I did notice that Gallaher is listed as a semi-finalist or finalist for almost all of the wards mentioned in his CV, rather than an actual winner. Again, I don't know how much to read into this. Quite possibly, being a finalist is notable already. As a test, I did compare him to one of the actual recent winners of the Walt Whitman Award, Joshua Clover (he won in 1996, whereas Gallaher was a finalist in 1999 and a semi-finalist in 2000). At first glance, Clover's record does appear to be more distinguished than that of Gallaher. Nsk92 (talk) 10:42, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete per nominator's rationale. Looks like an autobio. Voyaging(talk) 16:34, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep Laurel Review is a long standing, respected literary magazine and the The Levis Prize is a notable prize from an established and well known poetry press. notellbooks (talk) 12:10, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep. According to his CV, he has won or been finalist in several other prizes, including the Walt Whitman Award (finalist, 1999), New Issues Press Poetry Award, Colorado Prize, National Poetry Series Open Competition & Emerson Award.[4] Two published poetry anthologies, one of which is not from a "micro-press", co-editor of a respected poetry magazine, and winner/finalist in several prizes including at least one well-known one, appears sufficient. Espresso Addict (talk) 06:41, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment Finalist, even several finalist slots, is not really the same as winning. Winning a notable prize is a slam dunk. Not all of these are notable (I'm really not convinced that the Levis Prize that he won is notable, either) awards, and I don't feel that being a finalist in a non-notable award carries any real weight. Given the vast swathes of contemporary American poets of unquestioned notability on whom we do not have articles I don't see why we should be keeping this one. --Dhartung | Talk 20:19, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
  • I'm not arguing he's the world's most notable poet, but I can't see how deleting biographies such as this one encourages the creation of articles on poets of greater notability. Espresso Addict (talk) 20:34, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Still delete after viewing comments above. Claim of being a finalist in minor awards is found in subject's CV, hardly a verifiable source. No evidence has been produced for significant notability. Publishing verse is a risky business. Success can send one's words echoing down the ages, failure can expose one to the ridicule of a William McGonagall. Both categories are notable, but it is not clear yet if the subject falls into either. Subject needs to make a much greater impact on the world of poetry to be suitable for an article. Xxanthippe (talk) 07:06, 17 April 2008 (UTC).
  • Keep. John Gallaher writes poetry. Shouldn't his inclusion in an encyclopedia be based on his worth on a poet? No-one has yet mentioned the work. The Little Book of Guesses is a warm, funny, deeply thoughtful book about the first days of the 21st century. If you read it, you'd want people to know about the book, and about its author. So how about we keep the entry on, and let people find out about the poet and his poems and decide for themselves about his worth? Isn't Wikipedia meant to be a somewhat democratic exercise in information-sharing, rather than an exclusive, elitist site which only mentions big presses and perpetuates a divide in which the establishment gets attention just because it's the establishment? Given the number of commenters above who've said they know nothing about the contemporary poetry scene, Wikipedia clearly needs more information on it. Let's start here, let's take up the challenge to add bios for other up-and-coming poets, and let's stay true to Wikipedia's informative goals. lyttonjsmith (talk) 09:45, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
Actually, the style and the characteristics of his work are irrelevant for determining if inclusion in WP is warranted. It does not matter if his poetry is "warm, funny, deeply thoughtful" or, say, dark, moody and angry. These things can be mentioned in the article itself, if it is decided that it should be kept and if these kinds of characterizations of his work have been made by reliable sources, per WP:RS. For this AfD the only thing that matters is if he satisfies the standard of notability per one of WP guidelines, such as WP:BIO or WP:PROF. This is a largely bureaucratic and dispassionate process where our personal opinions about the value of somebody's work are not supposed to matter. Nsk92 (talk) 16:35, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
Nsk92, the point I was trying to make is that using awards as your mark of significance is really quite limited and not, in fact, dispassionate since it allows you only to consider the passions of a tiny number of people who administrate awards. When you consider the number of people who have managed to publish two books of poetry in this country, I'd say that's a particularly significant achievement on its own. I'd say that any poet who has managed to publish even one book, especially from a major, nationally distributed press like Four Way Books, is significant enough. I admire the attempt to make objective decisions, but a lot of what's discussed above (I don't mean your comment, I mean the comments as a whole) isn't objective decision-making; its surrendering decision-making to the subjective whims of awards-bodies. It's akin to not going to see a film because some people in the Academy didn't give it the Oscar. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.2.213.40 (talk) 16:46, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
That is a perfectly fine argument and I have no problem with it. Discussing what constitutes notability in a particular area (e.g. poetry) and how best to assess it is what AfDs are for. I was talking about inappropriateness of discussing our personal opinions about the merits of somebody's poetry. What I think personally about somebody's poetry should not matter and cannot be considered a valid argument in an AfD discussion. We still have to stick to some kind of formal and verifiable criteria that can be confirmed by reliable sources. Nsk92 (talk) 22:31, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
thanks Nsk92 for the response. I like the fact that this AfD gets to inform the decision, and to inform Wikipedia users on a particular area, in this case poetry. I do see the need for formal and verifiable criteria, while also accepting that contemporary poets are often about bucking conventional criteria. T.S. Eliot, for instance, was an anathema to his contemporaries at first for bucking accepted formal conventions. And below Emily Dickinson is mentioned. It seems that the spirit of inclusivity to which Wikipedia subscribes should allow this post to stay. I'd propose a formal criteria of a book published by a non-vanity press. If Wikipedia wants to confirm whether a press counts, contact the Poetry Foundation, Academy of American Poets, Poets and Writers, or the Poetry Society of American, respected organizations who could inform on what counts as a vanity press versus a respected publisher, whether they're establishment or anti-establishment. That way we get diversity rather than elitism. lyttonjsmith (talk) 23:45, 17 April 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.131.174.204 (talk)
This is true, many "important" poets did not win notable awards during their lifetime. That shouldn't be a deciding factor for inclusion. Many notable poets writing today are not winning prestigious awards. If we used that as the deciding criteria, the majority of the poets already included here would need to be removed -- starting with say Emily Dickinson. Who wants to be the one to nominate that article for deletion? notellbooks (talk) 19:35, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep ... it's pretty clearly not a vanity entry ... re above, what does 'notability to come' mean? If he's on the path then what's the problem? So much activity in the poetry world goes on at the margins I'd argue for erring on the side of inclusiveness, once some minimal bona fides have been established. Stumps (talk) 03:02, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep... as per my most recent improvements. Please add appropriate categories. --Poeticbent talk 17:25, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.