When I was fifteen, I sent a poem in to a poetry contest. It wasn’t a very good poem. Even at the time I knew that, but the contest was free and the poem was already written, so I thought, “What the heck?”

Imagine my amazement a few weeks later when I got a letter (this was before the days of email) telling me that I was a winner, my work was “exceptional” and would be included in their most recent anthology. The only hitch was that I would need to join their organization for a fee of $100+. Hmmm…suddenly that contest wasn’t so free anymore.

The letters kept coming, encouraging me to join, to send them $50+ for a copy of the anthology, to pay to have my mediocre poem carefully transcribed to a plaque, to come to their convention as a guest speaker (all travel costs would be mine, of course), and so it went for about six months, until it slowly dawned on them that I wasn’t reaching for my wallet.

I got a few more injured-sounding letters over the next few years-why was I depriving the world of the chance to see my poetry?-but those slowly trailed off as well. I had narrowly avoided being scammed.

Unfortunately, the same folks with whom I had my teenage run-in are still in business today, still flattering so-so poets and coaxing them out of as much money as possible. Since my own experience, I’ve talked to poets who’ve sent in obviously plagiarized work (the lyrics of “Three Blind Mice,” in fact), poets who’ve sent in random words with no meaning, and poets who sent in long strings of meaningless letters. All were notified that they were champions and prize poets.

The folks that run these competitions use several names, but they are the same basic entity. Some of their names include Library of Poetry, International Society of Poets, Watermark Press, and Poetry.com.

So are there legitimate poetry contests out there? Yes, but you’ll need to do a little snooping around to find them. One excellent place to start is the Academy of American Poets (
poets.org
). Frustrated at being frequently confused with the shadier International Society of Poets, the Academy of American Poets has an informative, easy-to-navigate website that offers a list of legitimate poetry contests sponsored by universities. (Click on “On Writing” and then again on “Academy Book Awards”)

Another source for legitimate poetry contests can be found at the Bryant McGill Legitimate Poetry
Contest page
. Still another list of legitimate poetry contests can be found at
freelancewriting.com

Is there any way you can tell if a contest is a scam? Here are a few indications.

First, there is no entry fee. While not damning in and of itself, most contests do charge a modest reading fee.

How often does the agency run contests? Most legitimate organizations run only one or two contests a year.

Have you ever heard of any of the judges? There should be at least a few established poets on the panel.

Are you asked for fees once you’ve been told you’ve won? That’s a bad sign. If you’ve won, the organization should be paying you, not asking you to pay them.

Finally, does their estimation of your poetry match your own? As writers, we all tend to be a little hard on ourselves sometimes, but mostly we’re honest enough to know if what we’ve written is good or not. If a letter from poetry contest organizers is overly flattering, gushing even, you’ve probably stumbled upon a scam. Don’t let yourself be fleeced. Toss the letter away and find a legitimate poetry contest.