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Contests : Tom Howard/John H. Reid Poetry Contest : Guidelines
Welcome to the seventh annual Tom Howard/John H. Reid Poetry
Contest sponsored by Tom Howard Books. First prize is $2,000. A total of $5,350 in prizes will be awarded. Submit poems in any style, theme or genre. Click here
to read the winning entries from past contests.
Submission Period
Entries accepted December 15-September 30 (postmark dates)
What to Submit
Poetry in any style or theme. Your entry should be your own original work. You may submit the same poem simultaneously to this contest and to others, and you may submit poems that have been published or won prizes elsewhere, as long as you own the online publication rights.
Prizes and Publication
First prize: $2,000. Second prize: $1,000. Third prize: $500. Fourth prize: $250. There will also be five High Distinction Awards of $200 each, and six Most Highly Commended Awards of $100 each. The top 15 entries will be published on the Winning Writers website (over one million page views per year) and announced in Tom Howard Contest News and the Winning Writers Newsletter, a combined audience of over 25,000 readers.
Entry Fee
The reading fee is $7 for every 25 lines you submit. If you submit a sonnet
of 14 lines and a haiku of 3 lines, totaling 17 lines, the fee would be $7.
If you submit three poems of 15 lines each, totaling 45 lines, the fee would
be $14. Exclude your poem titles and any blank lines from your line count.
There is no limit on the number of lines or number of poems you may submit. Please note: Generally entry fees are not refundable. However, if you believe you have an exceptional circumstance, please contact us within one year of your entry.
Deadline
September 30, 2009. Your entry must be postmarked or submitted online by this date.
How To Submit
Click here to submit online (credit card)
Click here to submit by mail (check or money order)
Click here to submit via PayPal
Announcement of Winners
The winners of the sixth contest will be announced on February 15, 2009. The winners of the seventh contest will be announced on February 15, 2010. Entrants with valid email addresses will receive an email notification.
English Language
Poets of all nations may enter. However, the poems you submit should be in English. If you have written a poem in another language, you may translate your poem into English and submit the translation.
Privacy
Your privacy is assured. Neither Winning Writers nor Tom Howard Books will
rent your information to third parties. Winning Writers processes entries and
fees for this contest as a service to Tom Howard Books. Winning Writers is
not a sponsor and does not judge the entries.
Copyright
If your entry wins any cash prize, you agree to give both John H. Reid and Winning Writers a nonexclusive license to publish your work online. From time to time, selected winning entries may also be published in printed collections. If you win a prize, we may ask you for permission to include your entry in one of these books. You may accept or decline this invitation as you choose. Your entry will not be published in print without your consent, and you retain all other rights. You are free, for example, to publish your work in print or online elsewhere, and to enter it into other contests, whether or not you win a prize in this contest.
 Judges
A former journalist and magazine editor, John H. Reid has judged literary contests for over 15 years. He has published several novels, a collection of poetry, a guide to winning literary contests and 24 books of film criticism and movie history. See his work at Lulu. Mr. Reid is assisted by Dee C. Konrad. A leading educator and published author, Ms. Konrad was Associate Professor in the English faculty of Barat College of DePaul University, and served as Dean of Liberal Arts and Sciences for the year 2000-2001.
About Winning Writers
Winning Writers finds and creates quality resources for poets and writers. Our expert online poetry contest guide, Poetry Contest Insider, profiles over 750 poetry contests. We directly sponsor the Wergle Flomp Humor Poetry Contest and the War Poetry Contest. We also assist the Tom Howard/John H. Reid Short Story Contest, the Margaret Reid Poetry Contest for Traditional Verse and the Tom Howard/John H. Reid Poetry Contest. Winning Writers is proud to be one of "101 Best Websites for Writers" (Writer's Digest, 2005-2008) and a recipient of the Truly Useful Site Award (Preditors & Editors, March 2006).
Questions about this contest? Please see the Frequently Asked Questions or click
here to email a note to the contest administrator.
John Reid's advice for Tom Howard Poetry Contest participants...
I enjoy judging poetry. It's a snack compared to reading other forms of literature. A story may start poorly, but soon develop into a fascinating character study, a fanciful adventure, an engrossing slice-of-life, or even a riotous comedy. But poetry, you need to read only a stanza or two and you know instantly whether it's going to make the grade to WORTH FURTHER READING or pop instantly into the REJECT basket.
We critics can argue from now to Doomsday as to what exactly poetry is. But we all agree on what it is not. I believe poetry can be and should be anything and everything: A vehicle for ideas, a simple description, an emotion, a thought, a time capsule, a conversation, a tirade and even a story or straight narrative. The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas, The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor, And the highwayman came riding— Riding—riding—The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn door. I don't care that narrative poems are now out of style. If Alfred
Noyes can do it, so can you.
I have only one bugaboo. Only one. I will not tolerate doggerel. All other forms, types, genres of verse are welcome. But I don't consider doggerel "poetry". It's just plain simple rubbish.
So what exactly is doggerel? My dictionary says "bad verse". So what makes it bad? In a word: clichés. In doggerel, June always rhymes with moon, never with bassoon or octoroon; love is almost always coupled with above, rarely with shove or glove. Doggerel forms a compulsory ingredient of greeting cards. A warm hello, a friendly smile, a word of cheer, and then...A special wish that you will soon be feeling well again! By the humble standards of doggerel, that's actually not too excruciating, but it's still an inevitable candidate for the recycle bin.
Would you believe that 95% of my instant rejects belong to the doggerel class of poetry entries? 95%! I blame the internet's multitudinous, non-discriminatory websites for this sudden rise in the popularity of instant trash. I want no part of it. Yet budding poets will insist on entering this garbage by the truckload. A complete waste of money. There's no way I'd award A warm hello a single cent, let alone a thousand dollars.
If you must use rhyming verse, for heaven's sake, be original!
The contest winners have been a varied lot. But they all have one quality in common: Originality!
Originality!
Originality!
Originality!
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