I'm not going to pull any punches here - the entries received to date have been disappointing. The contest is filling up a lot quicker than I anticipated, and this is the problem when people rush to get their entries written: quality is often compromised. I've had twenty two entries so far and have only felt able to put a mere eight of those through to the second round. And even though I asked for the date on entries there are a large percentage without any date; some people have also put their names, though if the poem is good I won't discard it just because of that. Still, I can't understand why so many people consistently fail to follow even simple rules.
I asked for imagery, and many of the entries contain practically no imagery, or else they have the complete opposite, with a total overload of adjectives. Many poems are extremely short on original simile and metaphor, and if I had a pound/dollar for every time I've read the phrase 'God's paintbrush' I'd be a rich woman! It's a cliche - avoid them like the plague (which is also a cliche!).
Whenever I ask for colour, imagery and description it seems to provoke a torrent of poems about fairy gardens and such like! But remember: you can inject colour, striking imagery and description into poems on the ugliest of subjects.
Never be afraid to experiment and play with words, and trust your readers to know what you are talking about. Even if they don't, isn't that part of the beauty and mystery? We don't always have to understand everything that we read!
I'll conclude with a short example of very striking use of language:
BORROWDALE
All night the sound of river:
the plummet-splash of little rapids,
rustling hems of water-skirted rocks.
At morning, breakfast: faces pour
their streams of snapshots, every one
so nearly like the last.
- Kona Macphee
Just look at the way she uses language, especially in that first stanza.