Bogus contest entries - Roy Jerden's Blog

I just read Debbie Guzzi's blog about 12 entries from one poet in her contest. I have gotten a few double entries of the same poem, but haven't had a contest fill up yet, so I haven't had the problem Debbie had. What I have seen however, are poems entered that clearly do not meet the contest rules, like a haiku entered in a contest requiring 16 lines or more. In my latest contest, I have 28 entries so far, but only 11 of the comply with the requirement to post a link to a recitation. I'm just wondering if some folks are just entering their poem in all the contests regardless of the rules. You can enter the same poem in more than one contest, but it seems a bit tacky to enter a single poem in all the contests. It's not a big task to ignore a bogus entry, but it is a bit disappointing and somewhat irritating. Perhaps this needs to be tightened up somehow.

What's your take?

Roy Jerden Date: 4/16/2013 5:20:00 PM Cyndi, you should read my previous blog where I discuss the exact question you bring up. Remember that oral poetry predates the written word. To say that the soul of poetry can be best savored on the written page seems to focus on a particular way to appreciate a poem. I have a picture in my mind of the ancient oral poets protesting that new-fangled writing stuff, saying that it takes away its soul, leaving only the dry words without flavor and interpretation. (wink) Read and comment on the other blog perhaps after the contest and after you have had a chance to see and hear the entries. See the contest rules for how I am planning to judge. It's spelled out there. Cheers, Roy Login to Reply Brian Strand Date: 4/18/2013 11:39:00 AM Guess we'll have to agree to differ Cyndi, I would invite anyone to listen to Heaney or Pinsky, W C Williams on youtube read their work(or mine even) while you have the poem before you and you'll see what I mean.Clearly any interaction or reaction between poet and reader is good but it is not the same experience as the immdeiacy is missing. Cyndi Macmillan Date: 4/18/2013 5:26:00 AM Brian (last one) Oops, meant a POEM should never be improved by a reading. Hope you are well, my friend, and that you are finding some time for you as you care for your Mrs! Cyndi Macmillan Date: 4/18/2013 5:24:00 AM Brian (cont) A poem is fully drafted, perfected, or ... not. You know I respect you as a poet and person. But I just can't agree with you, on THIS. :) Cyndi Macmillan Date: 4/18/2013 5:24:00 AM How I feel about this? Check this out: http://plantainperiodicals.wordpress.com/2012/03/09/poetry-vs-spoken-word-performance-poetry/ or http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/5913 STILL, I love poetry readings, have enjoyed hearing poems read by their makers. But a reading should never be "improved" by a reading. Cyndi Macmillan Date: 4/18/2013 5:19:00 AM Brian (continued) When a novel is written and written will often it can become film. Each should stand on its own. Spoken word is wonderful, I enjoy it. But poetry, to me, is not spoken word or performance art. A poet can INFLECT meaning with tone, a scowl. Pause dramatically. Um. A good poem creates its own tone, pauses and drama. Cyndi Macmillan Date: 4/18/2013 4:57:00 AM Brian, when photos were posted with poems here, I loved it, did it all the time. A few poets booed the "merger" and I didn't understand why, at the time. NOW I GET IT. Illustration forces interpretation, directs a reader to your intent, a kind of cheating.. more later Brian Strand Date: 4/18/2013 2:13:00 AM There is no conflict between the two Cyndi,the 'vocal' thought with in becomes into being upon our page and is then displayed to others and then conveyed preferably aloud by the poet to others.Reading it without hearing it in this unuique way is always second best, as there is 'too' much of the reader and less of the poet. Cyndi Macmillan Date: 4/16/2013 5:48:00 PM thumbs up, will do, oh, but Roy, my head is so very hard and I feel so PASSIONATELY about the written word, not that the spoken word and performance doesn't have its merits, oh, the page must be kept alive! I promise lol off the soapbox I go and I look forward to hearing your poets! HUGS

Andrea Dietrich Date: 4/16/2013 4:36:00 PM what I would like to know is: how in the world does one poet manage to get 12 entries into one contest?? OH MY! It really is too bad we cannot just nix them somehow!! Login to Reply

Cyndi Macmillan Date: 4/16/2013 4:34:00 PM Hi Roy, I have no real understanding of your contest, not really. No, I wasn't kidding, because I thought you just wanted to hear the poems read out loud(?) And I am confused on how you are going to judge this. Are you judging on the content, structure and composition of the poem, its heart, its SOUL, its unique qualities, its TRUE life, or on how the person reads it aloud? Diction? Delivery? Pretty voice? Definitely not my flavour. This may interest you http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fzk8E_RKeQ4 And this is why poetry is best left on the page, enjoyed and savoured, internalized and fully realized within the reader, at least to me. Though this kid is a cutie pie and if this was my daughter I'd be jumping up and down with delight. Login to Reply

Roy Jerden Date: 4/16/2013 3:38:00 PM In any case, it seems strange to me too that only 11 poems out of 28 entries so far meet the single rule. Cyndi, I don't know if you're kidding or not about me creating a presentation for the ones who didn't do so, but there's no way to get a link to the poem anyway without collaborating with the poet, who then might or might not like what I come up with. Then endless edits until they are satisfied. To consider doing it for 17 poets is madness, even if I had the inclination. On top of that I would have to judge my own creations, far from an objective approach, don't you think? Better that they do the heavy lifting or get a friend (or better a child born in the digital age) to help them. Login to Reply Cyndi Macmillan Date: 4/16/2013 5:12:00 PM I have received a few mock-me entries, Roy, in some of my contests that ruffled a few feathers. One lovely lady here (I adore her) sent me a "chastisment poem/keep it covered up" poem for my nude contest. LOL. I placed it, too well written to ignore! So some of your entries may be in response to the ACTUAL theme of your contest, a (lol) "vocalization" of the "written" word. ;-)

Roy Jerden Date: 4/16/2013 3:36:00 PM Good points, Cyndi. I suspect some folks choose the wrong contest by mistake. I did this myself once by choosing the one either above or below the correct one. However, I caught it and fixed it immediately by checking my contest entries. I have also pulled an entry sometimes anyway when I see a better fit in a different contest. I know you can have the same poem in different contests at the same time, but I've tried to avoid the "shotgun" approach. Login to Reply

Cyndi Macmillan Date: 4/16/2013 2:52:00 PM Roy, good blog. LOL. You can tell if its a good blog when it sparks interest and gets conversation flowing! Now, another point of view. We (hubby and me, occasionally my young daughter who likes Dora on Youtube) have one computer for on line, so this is shared. I have often read SEVERAL contests, thought I had the requirements down pat. I left home with my laptop (DOES NOT HAVE INTERNET. MY CHOICE) and spent hours writing something. Then saved it to my thumb drive, posted it and quickly (yes TOO quickly) entered it into the contest which inspired my write. Then, got busy doing mom-things (moms have a thousand mom-things to do) went back and checked later and realized I BLEW THE REQUIREMENTS by one condition. ie free verse but less than 20 lines etc or I got two contests mixed up (contest #1 was sonnets about loss and contest #2 was a free verse about about spring. I wrote a sonnet about spring!) I usually pull my entry if/when I catch this. I do this most often with LENGTH of the write (i.e. the contest host first says any form... okay any form... but then adds any form less than 20. oops forgot the less than! LOL) I used to do this all the time when I first started out at Soup and some judges hunted me down and gave me a gentle reminder of what they were looking for. So, my point is that they may not be "party crashing" and that some mistakes really are not intentional. Busy people just forget to cross their "T's" sometimes. I know I know, I should just print out the contests, which I always mean to do. But then I'm suddenly called away for a potty moment, a dropped cup of juice, and most importantly, "play with me, Mommy" time. Your contest seems self explanitory and unlike a single one I've ever read here on Soup. It IS odd that "YOU" are getting some that do not meet its one and only condition... so weird. Still, one question... did you enjoy anything you were sent? AND ... could "you" do the reading? Not everyone is able/feels comfortable with that kind of technology. Best wishes in your contest! Hope you get what you are looking for... at least partially, lol, cheers, Cyndi Login to Reply

Roy Jerden Date: 4/16/2013 1:27:00 PM Debbie, your issue was certainly different. I thought the system limited you to one poem per contest. I know we can manage around folks who enter our contests without checking the rules (party crashers if you will), but why is it so prevalent in the first place? My personal theory is that many of these folks just have a poem they want in a contest, so they just enter that poem in all the open contests without checking the rules of any of the contests. Unfortunately there's no way to verify this without access to the database. I guess it might be better if the system could limit a particular poem to one contest at a time. If you find a better contest than the one you have it in, switch. Login to Reply

Debbie Guzzi Date: 4/16/2013 11:45:00 AM What happened in my contest was the person entered EVERY poem they had to date written and some twice, I still wanted that person IN my contest but with 1 poem, hopefully that is fine? OR should I have let [x] have 12 chances? and [y] 1 Login to Reply

Roy Jerden Date: 4/16/2013 10:56:00 AM Good comments from everyone and I agree about enlarging the rules if I get poems that deserve attention, but are not to the letter of the rule. However in my latest contest, the only rule was to post a recitation, i.e. the point of the contest was to HEAR the poem. Don't know how to manage this otherwise. There are plenty of other contests. As I said in the blog, it's not a big deal to ignore it as far as effort; it's just disappointing to reject 2/3 of the poems because folks don't pay attention to details. Makes me less likely to want to do the work of thinking up an interesting contest. Just an ALL POEMS and let the chips land where they may. Login to Reply

Debbie Guzzi Date: 4/16/2013 8:31:00 AM You just have to take it in stride, I used to soup mail everyone and say please DO send a poem which fits the contest, please, but this one doesn't...it didn't work Roy I did it for YEARS! Login to Reply

Cyndi Macmillan Date: 4/16/2013 7:39:00 AM What makes a poem genuine would be my question? To me it is the quality of the write, not making sure the sky is very blue and the trees are never ever purple. Inspiration comes without permission. I'm more in line with PD on this. Still, I know some are sticklers and respect their position. But it AIN'T MINE. It would be like.. hmmm... telling Maya Anjelou you didn't write a sonnet when I asked for one, so no, I won't even highlight your work, as brilliant as it is, because you didn't follow my wa-wa-wa rules. If a poem is brilliant, it will place HIGH with me. If it follows every rule but is dull, overly contrived & without heart, it will place LOWER. Poetry has it own rules, MHO. Login to Reply Cyndi Macmillan Date: 4/16/2013 7:48:00 AM PPS I happen to know of one RECOGNIZED poet here on Soup who has had multiple works published, and not SELF published, who has even TOURED with your poetry and received dazzling reviews for her work BE CRITICIZED FOR HER STYLE HERE, TOLD TO CHANGE! BAH! Some know it alls really know dick-squat. Cyndi Macmillan Date: 4/16/2013 7:45:00 AM PS I read every entry that I am sent. If I see something fantastic, then it deserves attention. I don't want to be like the dumbass editor who told Fitzgerald, "“You’d have a decent book if you’d get rid of that Gatsby Character.”

Brian Strand Date: 4/16/2013 1:30:00 AM This has always been the case Roy,(I've sponsored 200 contests over the years here)the only solution I found was a)not to read ie ignore such poems & b)amend and increase the number of permitted entries for genuine entries.Rgds Brian Login to Reply

Francine Roberts Date: 4/15/2013 10:46:00 PM I have also had some entries that somehow ( no idea how) showed up more than once, in one contest one poem was there 12 times, I just go into the contest and change the amount of entries allowed, these flukes happen once in awhile, unexpected and unexplained even though supposedly there is only one entry allowed per contest Login to Reply

Seren Roberts Date: 4/15/2013 10:18:00 PM I agree Roy I had 8 poems that had nothing at all to do with the subject of the contest. I found out afterwards that some people couldnt enter because the allocated numbers had been filled....Seren Login to Reply Cyndi Macmillan Date: 4/16/2013 7:31:00 AM This is EASY to fix, Seren! Simply up the number of entries permitted; you can do this as long as your contest has not been judged! A "I've added another 8 spaces to my contest" blog may also give peeps a heads up that there is still time to put in an entry!

Francine Roberts Date: 4/15/2013 8:20:00 PM this is something we are all experiencing in every contest. P.D. said sometimes they don't read beyond the contest title.... well sometimes they don't even read that, my current contest is Whimsey in English Quintain, no other form acceptable, just English Quintain, my 6th entry was a sonnet, I actually left a comment for him which he chose to ignore, did not change it, did not remove it. THATS what annoys me, perhaps he didn't read it well enough before entering but now he does know and still it remains entered as is. The more rules to a contest , the more poems you will have entered that don`t qualify Login to Reply

Poet Destroyer A Date: 4/15/2013 7:04:00 PM about bogus entries, I think many poets, don't follow the rules. Doesn't mean their poems are fake or bogus. I'm thinking sometimes we only read what we want, when it comes to rules... LIKE THE TITLE. Many will enter a my contest only relating their poems to my title. LOL~ Sometimes I feel as if they don't click to read the contest itself. I can't say I follow rules all the time. "Maybe you can ask poets to double read the rules." Some poets are tough judges, and we know who they are... LOL, I stay clear from them. nice thinking blog... xox~ Linda Login to Reply

Poet Destroyer A Date: 4/15/2013 6:55:00 PM Roy, sometimes I get double entries from the best poet. I don't mind, I've done the mistake before.... LOL, one time I entered a poem in a contest and notice it was not submitting, so out of frustration I clicked and clicked and clicked, until it showed up as ENTERED'. I had no idea my poem only looked as I did not enter the poem. ~I had bad internet, it was horribly lagging.... Well, this can happen to anyone. Login to Reply