by May Monten

Created on: October 27, 2006   Last Updated: May 10, 2009

* Important update 5/9/09 *

In April, 2009, Lulu, which is a reputable self-publishing company, bought Poetry.com. Lulu has been making changes to Poetry.com. Most importantly, they have done away with the infamous anthologies that Poetry.com used to sell, for inflated prices, to the phony "winners" of their contests.

At the time of this update, Poetry.com no longer appears to be a scam.

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My original article, written in 10/2006, appears below. Because of the recent changes to the Poetry.com site, the information below is mostly of historical interest now.

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Poetry.com has a terrible reputation. They prey on wannabe writers' desire to be published.

The way it works is that they run contests. What they don't tell you is that everybody who enters is a "winner." Instead, they flatter people by telling them they won because their poems were so good. Then they try to sell an overpriced anthology of the "winning" poems to all of the "winners." That is how they make their money. Also, by having expensive conferences for the "winners."

If you want to read something funny, take a look at a poem that someone submitted to poetry.com to prove that they would take ANYTHING, no matter how awful. It's called "Flubblebop," and it starts like this:

flobble bobble blop
yim yam widdley woooo
oshtenpopple gurby
yip yip yip

This "poem" was accepted as a semi-finalist in poetry.com's North American Open Poetry contest. You can see the full poem, and a copy of poetry.com's acceptance letter, here:

http://www.winningwriters.com/contests/wergle/we_bac kground.php

Another masterpiece that poetry.com accepted was called "Nicky Nacky Noo." It starts like this:

Tum tum tum de tum
This is apoem I sings a lot
to make me very vary hapy.
I fink it will look good on a poster two.
and a cofey mug to shows my frineds
at work so they no i am an internashunal
poet who mite even winz a prise!

http://www.winningwriters.com/contests/wergle/we_nic ky.php

This is all very amusing. But there is something very sad about poetry.com, because they prey on people's hopes and dreams and take advantage of that.

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