5 Steps to Entering a Poetry Contest

Have you ever wondered if you are good enough to win a poetry contest? Thousands of people write poems around the world, but only a small handful actually do anything with it. If you haven't started marketing your work yet, a contest is the perfect place to begin.

Step One: You will need a poem to start with. It is usually easiest for the artist to write from inspiration, rather than to a set of guidelines, so I suggest beginning the process by writing a poem or two.

The poetry can be anything you like to write, rhymed or not, short or long verse, even haiku if you feel like it. Write what inspires you.

Alternatively, if inspiration is just not striking, you could dig out some older poems and try rewriting them, polishing and perfecting them.

Step Two: Editing your work is extremely important. Go back over your poetry a day or two after you have written it and all kinds of errors will jump out at you. This is the time to fix them. You can also have a friend or family member read your work and critique it (mother-in-laws are perfect for this task!).

Step Three: Find a contest. Poetry contests are all over the internet. They can be found by doing a simple search on your favorite search engine, or by looking on writing websites. These sites often have a section for writing contests, which includes poetry, of course.

Many poetry contests will try to charge you a fee to enter. It might be just a dollar or two, or you might be charged up to $25. My advice is to avoid submission fees, at least for the first few contests. Look for ones that are free to enter.

All contests have deadlines. Check to see what yours is. The problem with looking online for poetry contests is that the information is often out of date, so it pays to look at the deadline before submitting to a competition that closed a year ago!

Take a look at the prizes before choosing a poetry contest to enter. You need to decide whether you will be doing this for exposure or money. Some offer both. A great many competitions will only give you fame in the form of an anthology with your poem in it, while others offer cash rewards and still others offer another form of prize, like a free subscription to a magazine or membership site.

Step Four: Match your poem to the contest. Look at the guidelines for the poetry contest and decide which of your poems is best fitted to be entered. In some cases, you might want to actually write a poem specifically for a particular contest.

Step Five: Enter your poem in the contest. In many cases, this means emailing the poem in or just submitting it on the website. Snail mail may be accepted, but it is certainly not the norm these days.

Now you just need to sit back and wait. Or better yet, enter more poetry contests. The more you enter, the more likely you are to win one!