I’m often asked this question at symposiums and writers’ conferences. It also pops up constantly in email queries. The answer, of course, is yes and no. From the poet’s point of view, the answer is a qualified yes, for the simple reason that in America alone there are well over 200 major contests that offer substantial prize-money for Poetry.

On the other side of the coin, a few of the richest contests are not contests at all but lotteries in which prize-winning entries are not judged by recognized academics or professional writers, but selected purely at random by the office boy or a computer. These sham contests can usually be recognized by the fact that the organizers are very obviously in the business of selling books, most particularly anthologies of works entered in their current and previous contests.

Most legitimate Poetry Contests are usually restricted in some way or another. They may be open only to citizens of designated countries, or residents of particular states or cities, or even confined to current members of various literary organizations. And in almost all cases, limits will also be imposed on the length of the poems and the number of submissions. Even the types and genres of verse are often specified or restricted.

It’s also true that while many contests openly proclaim that all genres and subjects are acceptable, in actual fact this is often not the case at all. By examining the judges’ reports from major contests, you will often find such devastating admissions as: “Some of the entries were so amusing, we practically fell off our chairs laughing; but of course these entries were then instantly placed in the reject basket.”

Or “Many of the poems submitted were written in old-fashioned formats like sonnets and blank verse. These were immediately discarded.”

Or “The occasional piece of rhyming verse cropped up in the entries, but none, of course were worthy of further consideration.”

When I was a contestant, I occasionally tried to second-guess the judges by submitting at least ten or twelve entries in various styles and formats. However, I found the easiest way to determine what would appeal to the judges, was to read some of their own work and also make a careful examination of the poems that had won prizes in the past.

Finally, I always tried to keep my poems circulating. Better they were sitting on a judge’s desk rather than gathering dust in my bureau drawer.

Here is an excellent site that will help you determine which Poetry Contests are worth your time and entrance fees: http://www.winningwriters.com

The author of this article, John Howard Reid, is Chief Judge of three of America’s richest writing competitions, namely the annual Tom Howard Poetry Contest for Verse in All Styles and Genres, the annual Margaret Reid Poetry Prize for Traditional Verse, and the annual Tom Howard Short Story, Essay and Prose Contest. John Howard Reid has written prize-winning prose and poetry himself, and is also the author of the handbook, “Write Ways to Win Writing Contests.” Web site: http://writenews.exactpages.com - Email: johnreid@mail.qango.com

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