Nature poetry competition

[brianedwards]

Anyone thinking of entering?

Rialto

[Nash]

I hate the idea of having to pay to enter a competion. I'd rather there was no prize fund and you just got the title under your belt.

And call me a cynic but this bit put me off too:

"The term ‘Nature Poetry’ will be given a very wide interpretation by the judges."

What's the point in calling it a nature poetry competion if the first line says "well....we're calling it a nature poetry competion, but y'know, it's not really, just send in whatever you've got, we need the funds."

[brianedwards]

That's a no then?

[Nash]

.......and another thing, the cash would be good, but what if you won the 'additional prize' of having to follow some strange bloke called Cocker around the Fens.

What sort of a prize is that?

[brianedwards]

"Cocker around the Fens"

There's a poem in that!

Couldn't lend me a fiver could you Nash?

[delph_ambi]

I'll almost certainly enter.

The thing with pay to enter competitions is you get bigger cash prizes, MUCH better judges, and fewer people entering. I've done a lot of them over the last few years, and am easily in profit.

However, I'd sooner the rest of you didn't enter. Gives me more chance.

So don't enter. Please. You can't possibly afford a six quid investment for a possible thousand pound return.

[Ros]

Thing is, delph, you tend to win these things. So it's more 'what's the point of the rest of us entering if we know you're going to have a go'

Ros

[delph_ambi]

Yeah, I wish. Don't win them often enough to give up the day job, just enough to keep me addicted to competitions

[Ros]

Well, as long as you're in profit, no problem!

[Nash]

Couldn't lend me a fiver could you Nash?

Don't borrow money off of me Brian. If you're a bit short at the moment then why don't we set up our own competion? There's plenty of talented poets out there that are easily parted from their money.

Rialto's one of the big ones isn't it? So, what do you reckon? Around 5000 entries? At 6 quid a shot that's 30 grand!

We'll be rich I tell you! RICH!!!

[Mic]

What's the biggest cash prize you've won, Catherine? I have to say, it all sounds like a bit of a lottery to me. But perhaps, if you play enough, you'll hit the jackpot eventually, sort of thing....

Mic

[delph_ambi]

Mic, the biggest cash prize I've managed so far is £200 on a single win, but added to a number of smaller wins that's an awful lot of fivers which is why I manage to stay in profit.

[Mic]

I guess if you get a good early win and then use that money to fund future entries, you will improve your chances greatly (just by entering!). I don't know about anyone else, but my sense is that, assuming a certain level of talent, much of getting a poem accepted in a publication, or shortlisted for a prize, is nothing more than a numbers game really. The poem I recently had accepted by Magma, for example, had already done the rounds of the 'lesser' presses. What you need is the time, the energy and the money. I'm perseverant and undeterred by rejection (even when it is probably deserved) and I am now in the routine (well, have been) of sending a batch of poems out every few weeks. I'm therefore more likely to get published (or win a prize) than someone of more talent who doesn't have the same time, energy, money or thick skin.

Is that depressing? I don't know...

Mic

[delph_ambi]

No, I don't think that's depressing at all. I currently have about 250 pieces of one sort or another 'out there' and generally send stuff out every few days, so of course, given a reasonable level of skill, I'm going to get stuff published. And of course I'm also going to get hundreds of rejections - so many that I stop noticing them. I would hate to be sending out only a couple of pieces a month. Must be SO depressing when your babies get rejected if they're so few. If they're breeding like rabbits, it's not such a problem.

The 250 includes illustrations which is why it's such a high number. I even send out photos, taken on my little point and press camera, and sometimes get them accepted for journals or calendars. Completely mad! I'm no photographer, but lots of people who ARE decent photographers, never get round to sending stuff out. There's even a book cover out there that uses a photo I took forty years ago on a Kodak Instamatic.

[Mic]

And now for something bizarre - I've just this minute received an email from Artemis poetry magazine to say that they are going to take three of my drawings for their next issue!

(They didn't want any of my poems.)

Mic

[delph_ambi]

See what I mean? Offer them something fresh and unusual and arty, and you'll get the acceptances. Works for me, and looks like it's working for you. Congats!

[Mic]

Hmmm. While I am, of course, delighted to have these drawings published, this submission did feel like aiming at an open goal. It's a poetry journal so I doubt they get many drawings or pictures in the in-box. If I were to have submitted these drawings to an art journal it is extremely* unlikely they'd have been taken seriously.

Michaela Trying-to-Resist-Getting-Ideas-Above-Her-Tube-Stop Ridgway

* please note that I am not being down on my own work - I like it - I'm just being realistic.