So, you’re a poet, huh? You’ve written some fine work, your friends and family enjoy reading it, and you think others-complete strangers-will have the same love for your written words. And you’re intrigued by the possibility of getting paid for your poetry.
You’ve begun to think about entering a poetry contest. The problem is there are thousands of them out there, and you don’t know which one is the right one for you. If you’re reading this, you’ve come to the right place. I have answers for your questions, and I won’t lead you astray like many fly-by-night poetry contests will. I’ll tell you what you need to know.
You need to know what exactly a poetry contest is and what to avoid…
It’s a contest first and foremost, but it’s also a gamble. Why? Because very, very few legitimate contests are free of charge. Most often, poets must pay a ten or fifteen dollar entry fee. You have no better chance of winning than any other poet who enters, and thousands may enter. But you can hedge your bets and make sure you’re noticed by the judges.
Before you make the gamble, make sure you’re not gambling. Improve the overall quality of your poetry by incorporating themes and poetic devices into your work, and editing and revising several drafts. Learning how to write poetry is absolutely necessary to winning a poetry contest, and if you don’t think you’re good enough, don’t enter. There are better outlets for your work than contests if you’re not up to par with the other poets who enter.
If you think your poetry has a good chance to win, take the dive, but remember poetry is judged by human beings. They’re looking for what they think makes good poetry, and your views may differ greatly. Even if your poem is as good as the best poetry entered into the contest, there can only be one first place winner, meaning many poets will get short changed even if they could have won, and one of those poets is likely to be you. It’s similar a dice roll.
Legitimate poetry contests use the entry fees to fund the contest itself. Much of the fees go to fund the winnings and the rest go to the cost of running a poetry contest. There are ad-costs, postage fees, and the cost of personnel (someone has to pay the interns that filter through the contest entries). And many poetry contests done by magazines are financial ventures, where the contest runners expect to make a profit. The difference between these contests and illegitimate contests is the level of professionalism involved.
Illegitimate contests say they offer big awards-tens of thousands of dollars in cash prizes-but underneath, the contest is really done to try to get poets to buy their own books, and not in any way help them.
An example is Poetry.com. This organization promises many naïve poets that there are many cash prizes to be won, but when the poet submits her poetry, she is asked to buy Poetry.com books, which she’ll only be published in if she pays the fifty to seventy dollar cost of the book.
Many elated poets happy to be published for the first time fall for this trap and buy the expensive anthology, only to find out weeks or months later that it was all a scam and they only got published because they paid to be.
If a contest is free to enter, beware. Look into who sponsors the contest and search online for any word of the contest being a scam. If you need an example of how this works, simply type “Poetry.com scam” into a Google or Yahoo! search engine and see what you find.
What about legit contests?
Look for contests sponsored by professional literary organizations. A contest sponsored by The Paris Review is more likely to be legitimate than a contest sponsored by a recently formed internet magazine. (But just because a magazine is online, new, and charges, doesn’t make it illegitimate, it just means that you have to take extra caution.) If a contest is legitimate, you shouldn’t have trouble finding the past winning entries to compare to your own work, or biographies of the judges.
Always read the guidelines and make sure you and your poetry are eligible. Some contests only allow poets of a certain location or other criteria to enter. Your poetry may not fit the guidelines, either. It may be too long or too short. If you don’t fit the guideline requirements, chances are you’ll lose any more you paid and your poetry entry will be thrown away.
What about awards and rewards?
If you win, you may be awarded a cash prize or publication in a leading poetry magazine. If you don’t win, you still have a chance for reward. The name of the game is name recognition, and if your poem ranks, you will be looked at by other poets and professionals and will gain recognition, even if you don’t make money.
No matter what you decide to do, do your research and learn the ins and outs of poetry contests. Knowledge is power-and in this case, protection. Don’t be lazy and enter a contest without knowing everything you can about it. Even if entry costs only a nominal fifteen dollars, it’s fifteen dollars that could be spent on something better than a sham.
