“Poet and critic William Logan, an English professor at the University of Florida, says, ‘The facts at Foetry are mostly right, the tone mostly shrill. Reading it, I feel caught between being grateful and being annoyed.'” That may sum up the overall attitude about Foetry, but as Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter Alex Tizon notes in an in-depth, front page profile for the Los Angeles Times of Foetry founder Alan Cordle, the first part of Logan’s statement—the part about Foetry getting its facts straight—is having an enormous impact on the poetry world. “Cordle has shaken up the establishment,” writes Tizon, and has become perhaps the “most feared,” and certainly “the most talked-about” figure” in poetry. But the article goes deeper than merely profiling Cordle — and discussing the negative impact of his work on his relationship with his wife, poet Kathleen Halme — into an insightful overview of how poetry contests became such a dominant part of the American poetry scene: “American poetry became contest-driven after decades of waning public interest. Major publishing houses, squeezed by a 1979 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that resulted in higher taxes for unsold inventory, stopped publishing poetry books in volume.” Now, poet and Distinguished Professor of English at Iowa State University Neal Bowers tells Tizon that Foetry “confirms what anyone involved in poetry over the past 30 years has known for a long, long time”: Poetry contests are “rigged.” So what made Foetry different from all the others who complained during that time? Says Tizon, “What transformed Foetry from another obscure arty website with an attitude was Cordle’s penchant for research. Like an investigative reporter, he solicited tips from insiders and used open-records laws to get information from contest organizers. Then Cordle did what no one else had publicly done: He named names.” The result, says Tizon, is that after decades of inertia, the scene is now changing rapidly: After Foetry revealed conflicts at the University of Georgia Press poetry prize, long-time series editor Bim Ramke resigned, poetry world superstar Jorie Graham announced she would no longer judge poetry contests, and the school has changed its contest rules to instruct judges to “avoid conflicts of interest of all kinds.” In addition, “Two organizations influential in the poetry world — the Council of Literary Magazines & Presses and Associated Writing Programs — this spring began discussions on developing standardized guidelines for poetry contests.” What’s more, the issue has “gotten the attention of the pantheon of power” — earlier this month Cordle got a phone call from Dana Gioia, head of the National Endowment for the Arts, “to offer support for Foetry’s goals.” Some of Cordle’s enemies, however, continue to heatedly deny him credit for anything more than malice. Says Janet Holmes of Boise State University, who runs the Sawtooth Poetry Prize, which was accused by Foetry of giving out conflicted awards, “I’m sure Alan [Cordle] would like to take credit for all this. The truth is it’s a good time to have this conversation.”