Poetry.com Winner??? o_O?

Question

Poetry.com Winner??? o_O?

Answer 1

Go to a search engine and type in "poetry.com scam" and see what you get. It isn't a scam in the sense that you don't get something in return. It is essentially a vanity press. They publish your work and attempt to get you to buy the book and related merchandise like the CD you mentioned. The scam is that they aren't basing anything on the quality of your poem. There are actual contests out there that attempt to write the worst poem possible and then they submit it to poetry.com. These are also semi-finalists, and editor's choice--every last one of them. It is a business. Your poem could be good. It might be bad. To poetry.com though it doesn't matter. Your poem might make them money from you--that's what they care about.

Answer 2

I mean no offense to people who have proudly published their work with poetry.com and similar organizations, but such organizations are considered the lowest of the low in poetry circles, sleazy, bottom-feeding con artists. Variants of the scheme have been going on for years.



This is basically how it works: A rather large number of entrants gets a letter saying they are a semi-finalist and are going to be published in a book. Then they are offered the chance to purchase this book of winning poems they appeared in. The book usually costs quite a bit, considering it is merely a mimeographed arrangement of randomly assembled poems of generally fairly terrible quality. It is essentially a group vanity publishing project--you and several hundred random people are all paying this organization to photocopy and bind your poems together in a volume. You, and perhaps your excited family and friends who also buy copies, are the only ones who will ever receive copies of the book. I have no idea what they charge for these collections, but I seem to remember hearing a number like 20 or 30 dollars over ten years ago. These people make a tremendous amount of money off this--most people in this society who write poetry feel so overlooked and obscure that when somebody tells them they've been selected for publication, they are so overjoyed that they are quite happy to write a fifty dollar check to get the proof of their publication. The cost of mass producing these books to order is pretty low, especially in this day and age. There is a apparently enough of a surplus of funds to award those Ed McMahon like checks featured on their webpage.



As scams go, I don't actually think this one is as shitty, as, for instance, scamming old retired couples by performing half-*** phony repair jobs on their homes. But many poets or poetry lovers really think they are the anti-Christ, because basically they are selling people a false sense of validation. One thing you should know when you consider dealing with them is this: It isn't considered a real publication by anybody who knows anything about poetry and poetry publishing. It isn't taken seriously by academic tenure committees and it isn't taken seriously by the sort of people who publish underground, neo-beat and experimental type journals.



That's not to say that if you publish a poem with poetry.com nobody will ever take YOU seriously as a poet--only a snob (of which there are many involved with poetry) would hold it against you if you published a poem with them because you didn't know better and got tricked. Not every poem they publish is even bad.



A lot of people really will defend them--they will say "Well, they encouraged me and made me feel like I could be a real poet, too." I don't want to discourage people, aside from discouraging them from believing in idiotic right-wing christian ideology. But I certainly don't like to discourage people about writing poetry. And there is no doubt that poetry.com does a great deal of encouraging. But if people just really want to see their poems attractively bound, these days they can just print a few hundred copies of their own book, designed to look like they want it to look, for several hundred dollars.

Answer 3

I have heard about Poetry.com quite a bit. I know there have been people who actually won, but I've also seen spammers who mention the site to anybody who writes (I've dealt with a few on deviantArt).



My advice? Go through their terms and conditions and whatnot on the site- make sure that you still have rights to the poem, and there's nothing else in their terms that you wouldn't want to deal with. Still fine? Then go for it!

Answer 4

extremely tough stuff. look using the search engines. that may help!

Answer 5

This is straight from wikipedia:



poetry.com

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



Poetry.com is a web site run by The International Library of Poetry, also known as the International Society of Poets and the International Poetry Hall of Fame,[1] a Maryland-based company considered by many to be a vanity publisher. Poetry.com claims to coordinate monthly poetry contests and other services through its website, though the actual competitive nature of these contests is unclear. The site's ostensible primary purpose is publication of poetry anthologies submitted by aspiring authors, and invitations to poetry conventions hosted by the group. The Better Business Bureau of Greater Maryland classifies the business as a vanity publisher, and notes that the quality of the poetry submitted to them "does not appear to be a significant consideration for selection for publication."[2





[edit] Contests and conventions

Poetry.com runs regular contests, and publishes books of finalists. In order to qualify for the contest, a poem must be written in 24 lines or less, with a maximum of 60 characters per line. The author must also enter his or her mailing address in order for the poem to be judged in the contest. There are no other guidelines and, apparently, no artistic or academic criteria against which the submitted poems are judged.[2] Many claim that almost all poems submitted to the competitions are selected as semi-finalists (thus qualifying for publication); indeed, according to a report on ABC's 20/20 news program, the company admits that this is the case.[3][4] The published books are sold at $59.95 per copy, and (against standard industry practice for poetry competitions)[5] winners do not receive free copies. Though winners are told that their poems will be published whether or not they choose to purchase the book, many authors who have chosen not to purchase the book have found later that neither their poems nor their names have been included.[citation needed] Insertion of a biography along with a poem is possible, although an additional $25 fee is charged for this. These books are generally considered to be of low quality, are over 500 pages in length and include at least six poems per page.[6] It is primarily for this reason that many authors consider Poetry.com (and similar groups) to be a vanity press.



The company also organizes regular conventions, at which they hand out awards for poems they have included in their books. In order to attend, the authors must pay an individual entrance fee of USD$595, which does not include travel, food, or lodging.



It should also be noted that they will often mail the authors of the poems accepted into the anthology-like books and tell them that they may for an additional cost record their poem onto a CD that will be sold along with the anthology. All who accept the offer will then be placed onto poor quality CD that is a continuous loop of poetry readings of all participants. The CD does not feature any set list, and will sometimes distort parts of words.[citation needed]





[edit] Criticism

There have been a number of complaints to organizations in the United States, such as the Better Business Bureau, by those who feel they have been misled by poetry.com. Some consider the International Library of Poetry and its activities to be a fraud and/or a scam; they cite the fact that poetry.com's promotional materials lead participating writers to believe that their poems were selected for the website's monthly contest because of their quality, when in fact virtually all submissions "advance" to the semi-finals. At that point, the would-be authors are encouraged to spend money on copies of the compilation books and/or visits to the poetry conventions.[citation needed]



Additionally, although Poetry.com's website claims that these books are available at "major bookstores",[7] attempts to purchase these books from major retailers such as Barnes and Noble or Amazon.com generally fail.[citation needed]



As of November 2006, there is no verifiable report of any successful legal action being taken against the company for alleged fraud. According to the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America's Writer Beware web site, however, the Maryland Attorney General's Office is interested in hearing from writers who have had dealings with the International Library of Poetry.[3]





[edit] Picture.com

Picture.com is a site of a similar nature, but a photography contest instead of a poetry contest.





[edit] References

^ Writer Beware: Contests and Vanity Anthologies. Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. Retrieved on 2007-04-15.

^ a b Margo Stever. THE CONTESTER: Poetry.com Struggles for Legitimacy. Poets and Writers Magazine. Retrieved on 2007-04-15.

^ a b Writer Beware: Warnings and Cautions for Writers. Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. Retrieved on 2007-04-15.

^ Arnold Diaz. 20/20 [TV News Magazine]. ABC.

^ Writing and Publishing FAQ. Academy of American Poets. Retrieved on 2007-05-08.

^ Theresa Coleman. Special Report: Big Money in Poetry. Wind Publications. Retrieved on 2007-04-15.

^ Frequently Asked Questions. poetry.com. Retrieved on 2007-04-15.



Check out this site and click on the link in the middle of the page.http://www.winningwriters.com/contests/wergle/we_guidelines.php

Answer 6

I got all those letters and emails from poetry.com and poetryamerica.com which I sent money to, to get a copy of the book. Well its been 8 months since they had my money and no book yet.

Answer 7

It IS a scam, don't fall for it.

Answer 8

I'm going to give this to you without any sugar coating...



I have no doubt that everyone in the anthologies is real. And they paid real money too. And some people will want to be real good friends with them because they can probably get some more real money out of them.



The problem with poetry.com is it is meaningless as far as claiming to have won something. The "win" is seen as who can be the biggest sucker. Sorry. It's true. No one in the literary world looks at ANYONE claiming ANYTHING being published by poetry.com and its publishing arm as being a credit. It is an embarrassment and one that most people claiming the win with pride does not know that fact. Seriously--if you are truly interested in being a poet, you have to stop wasting your time with poetry.com.