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Contests : Margaret Reid Poetry Contest : Submit by Mail
Welcome to the fifth annual Margaret Reid Poetry Contest for Traditional Verse sponsored by Tom Howard Books. First prize is $2,000. A total of $5,250 in prizes will be awarded. Click here to read the winning poems from past contests.
This page tells you how to enter by mail. If
you prefer to submit online and pay by credit card,
please click here.
Submission Period
Entries accepted November 15-June 30 (postmark dates)
What to Submit
Poetry in traditional verse forms. 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.
What are traditional verse forms? By traditional verse, we
mean any form of poetry that has been in circulation for 50 years or more. The
poems you submit should follow some kind of formal or informal pattern. This
pattern might involve rhyme, meter, length of line, repetition, or some other
pattern, strict or loose. Forms that qualify
include free verse (as exemplified by such poets as
T.S. Eliot,
Ezra Pound,
Walt Whitman,
Stephen Spender),
"sprung" verse (Gerard
Manley Hopkins), narrative verse (Alfred
Noyes), satirical verse (e.e. cummings: "my
sweet old etcetera";
Dorothy
Parker), nonsense verse (Edward
Lear), lyric verse (Tennyson),
romantic verse (Wordsworth),
religious verse (James Russell
Lowell), children's verse (A.A.
Milne), comic verse and parodies (W.S.
Gilbert, A.P.
Herbert), sonnets, haiku, ghazals, ballads, odes, villanelles, sestinas,
songs, hymns, etc. For your reference, this Glossary
of Poetic Terms describes many forms. You may also enjoy sites for traditional and exotic forms of poetry found on our resource
pages.
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 five Most Highly Commended Awards of $100 each. The top 14 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 20,000 readers.
Entry Fee
The reading fee is $6 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 $6.
If you submit two villanelles of 19 lines each, totaling 38 lines, the fee would
be $12. 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
June 30, 2008. Your entry must be postmarked or submitted online by this date.
To enter by mail, please include a cover sheet with your submission. It should note your name, address, phone number, email address (if you have one), the titles of your poems and the total number of lines in your poems. Please omit your name from the entries themselves. Entries should be typed or printed by computer. We prefer white, letter-size paper. The 12-point font size is ideal. Please avoid fancy, hard-to-read typefaces. Include your fee as a check or money order payable to Winning Writers. Entries will not be returned, so please don't send your only copy. Please clip everything together (no staples) and mail your submission to:
Winning Writers
Attn: Margaret Reid Poetry Contest
351 Pleasant Street, PMB 222
Northampton, MA 01060-3961
USA
Announcement of Winners
We are pleased to present the 2007 winners here. The 2008 winners will be announced on WinningWriters.com on October 15, 2008 (delayed from September 15 to allow more time for judging). 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.
Non-US entrants: Please don't send non-US currency, or checks or money orders drawn on non-US financial institutions. We recommend online
submission with payment by credit card. Alternately, please send your fee in US currency by mail.
Questions about this contest? Please click
here to send a note to the contest administrator.
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