by Laura Strebel

Created on: October 23, 2008   Last Updated: October 31, 2008

The Winner

"You're a winner!" the letter proclaims.
Excitement cries to be free.
"You've done your best!" I'm headed for fame's
rewards for being... me?

I spoke my bit and voiced my thoughts,
I hit the ENTER key.
Waited and doubted and silently fought
with the feelings I've had since three;

"There's no free lunch", people declare,
"Where do you think you'll be?".
And reading the fine print I find the fare,

Excitement is based on a fee.

As the poem suggests, the "free" poetry contests are held for someone's profit. You'll be excited to be declared a Poet and will want to see your poem in print. The next step is to offer your poem in a book of poetry with your poem, of course, as the featured piece of work. Yup, there it is, on the very first page. Looks so good, it's printed just right and there's your name for all the world to see.

Perhaps you'll find another person who has a poem published in "your" book. The one with your piece prominently featured on the very first page. You're so anxious to show it off and reap the accolades of the doubters that didn't think you could do it. You pull out the book, open the cover, show it to this new person and they look at you quizzically.

"Hm, that's interesting. I have my poem published in the same book, but my poem is on the first page as the featured writer". Then, "Yup, same book. The same title, publisher, year printed, but what is your poem doing in my book?" Well, there must be a mistake, you exclaim. But you wonder, how difficult is it to put the poem of whomever buys the book, on the first page? Obviously, not very difficult at all.

As a business, this is no different than most any other. Stroke someone's ego well enough and they'll purr on que with their money order ready. Can this be classed as just a rip-off? Not really. To you, when you're first starting out, it's encouragement beyond all expectation. Some that find out their talent isn't world quality after all, get discouraged because the next poem and the next, on the same site, produce the same result. Then they venture out and try to produce the same result on other sites and ... nothing happens. Worse yet, they stumble into a site that actually critiques the work that is submitted and they discover they don't know near enough to have their poetry accepted anywhere. And promptly quit.

Others will take the critiques and use them to polish and learn the craft they find filled with quiet enjoyment. They find there are names for the different types of poetry, phrases describing the differences in pace and rhyme, formulas, of sorts, to class their poetry with. They keep writing and learning and finding peace with the form and somewhere down the line, they'll receive a letter welcoming their new piece of poetry for publication in an accepted media.

I am proud to say, the piece I wrote to start out this article, was accepted when posted. The person that reviews the postings must have been on vacation when I posted this but it was only there for a few days, then deleted and no mention of it could be found. I wonder why?

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