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Poetry.com (which has since been purchased and is under new ownership) was a website that thrived by scamming amateur poets. It also went by the names International Library of Poets and National Library of Poets. The company hosted a free poetry contest, claiming to offer $10,000 in prizes, which sounds pretty darned good. Here's how it worked:

The amateur poet sees an ad for this free poetry contest and figures, "Why not? What have I got to lose?" So he sends in a poem and waits. One day in the mail he gets a letter or an email saying that his poem has made it into the semi-final round of the contest, and because it is such an excellent and well-written poem, Poetry.com would like to include it in a "deluxe" hard-cover anthology, free of charge. At this point the poet (who probably has never had a professional publication) is beaming with pride, and he goes on to read about how he is not obligated to buy a copy of this extremely valuable and important book, but if he would like to, he will be able to purchase as many copies as he wants at the special pre-publication discount of $40-$60. (I'm not sure how much the books are now, but they were $50 each back in 2000 when they scammed me.)

Plus, if the poet would be so inclined, he could provide a short biography of himself to be published along with his poem, for the nominal fee of $25. When you're already spending $100 (which I did - a copy for me and a copy for my family, because I wanted to show off my accomplishment) what's an extra $25?

I know a lot of people have said that after paying for their copy and giving permission to publish their poem, they never received a copy of the book, but I actually got my two copies. They were very nicely printed hardcover books, which contained hundreds of poems all crammed together on the pages in a tiny font. I found my poem smashed in the bottom corner of a page.

The company, in its sales pitch, states that these anthologies (I think they print several a year) will be available in libraries and bookstores all over the world. I've been in many libraries and even more bookstores, and I've never once seen a publication by Poetry.com in any of them.

A few years back a news show (20/20 or Dateline or one of those kinds of shows) did a special report on Poetry.com. They had a class of second-grade students each write a poem and submit it to the contest. Not surprisingly, each and every student got a letter back claiming that their extraordinary and impressive poem had been chosen to move on to the semi-final round of the competition, and the publishers would like to include it in a deluxe anthology.

I guess the scam was just this side of legal because the company didn't force you to buy anything. But really, what aspiring poet who has his poem chosen for inclusion in a contest anthology will not want to have a copy? And the money-grubbing didn't stop there. After my poem was published, I got an email declaring that I had been nominated as one of the "Best Poets" of 2000, and therefore if I submitted another poem - ANY poem - it would be included in their next anthology, at no charge, which of course I was free to buy as many copies of as I would like. And there are poetry conventions they invite you to (for only $500 or $600), plaques they "award" you (which you have to pay to receive), and even fees to pay if you want to have a "professional" read your poem to an audience at their convention.

The shameless greed and deceitfulness of Poetry.com (and sites like it) is what inspired the Wergle Flomp Humor Poetry Contest, which gives away almost $4,000 in prizes. The contest aims to find the "best" intentionally horrible poems that were sent to Poetry.com and not rejected. To get an idea of the kind of poetry that Poetry.com published, read some of the past Wergle Flomp winners.

In March 2009, self-publishing giant Lulu.com purchased the Poetry.com domain. It is obvious from the comments left on their blog all of the bad feelings created by Poetry.com. It will be interesting to see how Lulu handles the website and if they intend to crank out the same low-quality anthologies their predecessor did.

Learn more about this author, Greg Schwartz.
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