  Dear Iowa Mafia,  I am sponsoring an essay contest.  You are all strongly encouraged to participate.  First prize is a cash award of a presently undisclosed amount.  The contest rules are as follows.  Well,
 before I get to those,  I’ ll give you a little history,  a little background,  implicit in which the aforementioned contest rules may,  or might,
 be.  When I asked Frank Conroy to write me a letter of recommendation,  he said he would be pleased to do so,  wholeheartedly and without reservation.  However,  there was,
 or is,  what I perceive to be a catch.  He said that he is,  in any case,  pleased to write any graduate of the Workshop a letter of recommendation because the level of discourse at Iowa is of an order of magnitude to ipso facto warrant one,  but that (
and here’ s the perceived catch)  the student himself must write the letter.  That is,  I write the letter,  send it to him,
 he laughs,  edits,  files it away.  It turns out,  however,  that I am too self-
loathing to recommend myself,  let alone to assume the voice of Conroy in the doing so.  The letter,  Frank said,  is nothing more than a form letter,  one that should (
or perhaps he said “ could”  end with:  I recommend… wholeheartedly and without reservation.  &
nbsp;  In fairness to Pete,  I asked him to write this letter for me,  and he said he’ d be pleased to do so,  wholeheartedly and without reservation,
 but that was weeks ago,  and Pete,  by his own admission,  is an out- of- sight-
out- of- mind sort of guy,  a poor corresponder,  and calls to mind a passage from Proust:  “
The process which had begun in [ Pete]  –  and in [ him]  a little earlier only than it must come to all of us –
 was the great and general renunciation which old age makes in preparation for death,  the chrysalis stage of life,  which may be observed wherever life has been unduly prolonged;  even in old lovers who have lived for one another with the utmost intensity of passion,  and in old friends bound by the closest ties of mental sympathy,  who,
 after a certain year,  cease to make the necessary journey,  or even to cross the street to see one another,  cease to correspond,  and know well that they will communicate no more in this world.  &
nbsp;  I suppose it’ s possible no one will when this esteemed contest,  but I hope that’ s not the case.  I encourage collaboration and plagiarism,
 and should it be the case that I end out using not a single essay but a combination of essays,  bits and pieces from here or there,  I will divide the amount of the currently undisclosed cash award by the number of words in the final eclectism,  and pay each author on a wordly basis.  For you organized thinkers out there ( Sarah,
 Michelle)  we're talking three or four minutes of effort.  But,  I understand,  wholeheartedly,  that people have other shit to do.
 I wish you all the best of luck in this prestigious contest.  And remember that,  given the level of discourse,  you’ re all winners to me.  Cheers,
 Thomas E.  Derr,  Olympic Hopeful & nbsp;
