Finally judging/ my Grinchy Rules/ A Gremlin in my Soup - Andrea Dietrich's Blog

If this keeps showing bold print, I have no idea why because I've tried to reverse it.

Hi, Soupers. At last my two-week vacation has started, so I can take time to judge my Christmas contest. Sorry I’ve taken so long. Yesterday a gremlin showed up as an old poem being entered in a sponsor’s contest, and I did not enter that poem. The sponsor can’t even see it, yet it shows up as entered and does not allow for me to remove it. I have tried various little tricks to get rid of it, all to no avail, so TEAM SOUP, please will you withdraw that poem I mentioned in an email to you?

About my Christmas contest and why I am grinchy with rules: first, this was a short poem contest. So far, halfway finished reading my entries, I have found two over the line limit. I can forgive 15 really short lines, but not 20+ super long lines. Also, people who entered new poems often left off
‘Brand New Poem” as part of their title, so that will likely affect placement

Regarding poetry forms: I judge by how well people stick to the rules of particular forms they have chosen. If a form is rhymed, I don’t want to see near rhymes or no rhymes at all. If the form has a particular meter and/or syllable count (such as sonnet, limerick or triolet etc.), I want to see that, or it’s doubtful that poem can place first (even if it has a wonderful message). Traditional short forms such as haiku or tanka need to contain the right syllable count. However, if I can tell that a poet is using contemporary style with all lines shortened, I love that. In both cases, the final line is best when it uses juxtaposition. If a poet’s Asian form scores low, it’s because of these rules.

A few other things: I pay attention to good grammar, punctuation and spelling. If a person can’t use the correct punctuation marks, he is better off using none at all, but by now most of the members of Soup who have entered lots of my contests ought to know I love punctuated poetry. Finally, I have noticed some of my entries with extra info on the bottom. This is now disallowed by PoetrySoup, but in the spirit of the season, I will ignore it this time, but In the future, I will N/A poems using extra info underneath them. Always fix this, guys, when you use older poems in new contests.

Finally, I also judge by my own taste in poetry, so if you have followed all my rules but don’t place high, it’s because the poem just did not please me as much as higher placed poems. Anyone who scores low and wants to know why, please use Soupmail to ask me why. I always place generously, but whether a poem places low or high probably has to do with the rules I mentioned above. I also like poems with clarity, beautiful but not so lofty that I can’t figure out very well what the poet is saying.

I hope as many people as possible will read this blog to understand my style of judging in the future. I almost always allow for a few little mistakes, but those errors will affect the level of a poet’s placement. I wish everyone a very merry Christmas.