| The first problem is one of genre. Sometimes a | | | | essential to determine what attitudes the winning |
| contest itself will spell out exactly what genres | | | | poets display. These days, a questioning attitude is |
| are required or are acceptable, but mostly the | | | | in vogue, particularly in contests sponsored by |
| rules of the competition will not disclose if the | | | | Universities. For example, the winning poets will |
| contest has a bias towards traditional verse, free | | | | often pose questions about protecting the |
| verse, or experimental. To find this information, a | | | | environment and other areas of social |
| potential entrant will need to examine past winning | | | | responsibility. |
| entries. If there is no traditional verse among the | | | | This leads a potential entrant to the final question, |
| winning or commended verses, it can safely be | | | | what subjects seem to be popular? It's obviously |
| assumed that, despite what the official rules may | | | | no use sending a clever poem about junior league |
| indicate, it is a waste of time sending traditional | | | | baseball to a contest that seems overly |
| poems to this particular contest. Even | | | | concerned with equal rights for women or the |
| Wordsworth himself would not break into the | | | | inevitability of death and disease. |
| winners' circle. | | | | All these pointers can be brought together by one |
| The second qualification to ferret out is whether | | | | simple action. Study past winning entries. If |
| the judges have a bias against any particular | | | | necessary buy a copy of the printed anthology, if |
| types of poetry. Narrative poems, for example. | | | | there is one, and examine it carefully. This |
| Are any such poems in the winning lists? The | | | | represents money and time well spent, even if |
| answer is usually no. Are prose poems | | | | you decide that a particular contest is unsuitable. |
| acceptable? Once again, the answer in many | | | | Once you determine this fact, you will not be |
| (though by no means all) cases is negative. | | | | wasting your energy, your money, your time and |
| So, thinking positively, what types of verse seem | | | | your emotions submitting entries that have not |
| to recur again and again among the winners? On | | | | the slightest chance of success. There are |
| close examination, just about all the winning | | | | presently many contests out there that would |
| poetry in the past decade will probably fall into the | | | | reject the greatest poets who have ever put pen |
| classification of free verse. | | | | to paper, simply because their poetry is no longer |
| Next, and this is where most writers trip up, it is | | | | in fashion. |