I use to send a few of my poems to the site poetry.com [1] with hopes of gaining the $1,000 prize at the end. Somehow, all the poetry I sent would be acknowledged a few weeks later with a letter in the mail stating that my poem was a semi-finalist for the cash prize; the letters would also be subsequently crammed with brochures of poetry anthologies to purchase, along with a list of other products to buy with either my name, poem, or both, engraved on it. Then there would always be an offer to attend some sort of poetry convention for a price ranging between three to four hundred dollars. I never bought anything, mind you, and in turn I never got any form of a monetary award.

A few months ago I came upon this website called winningwriters.com [2]. It was through this website that I read an article regarding the subject of "vanity poetry contests" -- contests that basically receives all submissions and automatically sends the individual a letter saying that their poem is a semi-finalist, and that they will win the grand prize provided they purchase something, or attend a pricey convention. I decided to test out the validity of that article by composing the most horrible poem ever to spawn in the dark crevices of my mind, and sending it in to poetry.com to see if I would receive that automatic letter. Here was the poem that I sent:

"(Ling-Lin) Reynold's Rap": You want a piece of me?/  You want a piece of me?/ I'll giveyouapiece of ham/ if you trade that piece of chee.

Sure enough, today in the mail I received a letter stating "after careful reading and discussing of your poem, our Selection committee has certified your poem as a semi-finalist..." Of course, the next immediate paragraph below included large blue print with the line: "And that's not all... Imagine Your Poem Featured on a Page By Itself in a Beautiful Coffee-table Edition!"  Good Lord.  I also read an article (on winningwriters.com) about how the humor columnist Dave Barry once instructed his readers to send a poem to poetry.com under the first name "Freemont," along with the insertion of the line "dog ate mothers toes."  I suggest that if you are having a bad day and need a good laugh, go to poetry.com and type in "Freemont" in the first-name search engine. Enjoy.

Oh, and beware of any scam writing competitions. Contests/scholarships that claim to be scholarships really aren't if you're the one funding them.