Calling all poets: we want your nature tributes, your love sonnets, your comic verses – it's all welcome in the Express Yourself Poetry Contest. You could win $100 cash and be featured on the Gather homepage! So whether you're into haiku, villanelle, or free verse,, share your best work to win.
It’s easy to participate. Just follow these simple steps:
1) First, join The Poetry Review group on Gather at thepoetryreview.gather.com. Join now!
2) Next, publish your poem (multiple entries are allowed). Here’s how:
- Click on the Publish tab at the top of any Gather page
- Select Publish an Article
- Enter the title of your poem in the “Title” area; if you’re submitting a form poem, make sure to include the form in the title (ie: The Rose – A Haiku)
- Draft (or copy and paste) your poem in the text area
- In the Add Tags field, you must include the word “poetrycontest” (all one word) by itself, separated from any other words by a comma
- Publish your article to The Poetry Review group by selecting “Everyone” and “The Poetry Review” in the Who can view my article field
- Click Publish
The Grand Prize Winner will receive $100 cash from Gather, and a runner-up will be awarded a $20 Borders Gift Card. The competition will be judged by poet Jonathan Neihart. Jonathan’s poetry has appeared in various publications including: The Rockford Review, Poetrymagazine.com, and The Larcom Review. He has read his work twice on National Public radio’s Here and Now program, and he is the co-owner/creator of MoonTownCafe.com. Jonathan has resided in New Hampshire all his life, and he received a BA in English from the University of New Hampshire in 1996. At 34, he is nearing the completion of his first full-length book of free verse, entitled Frost Heaves, Next Five Miles.
The contest submission period runs from July 16 to 11:59 PM ET on August 5. The Grand Prize Winner and Runner-up will be announced on Thursday, August 16. Good luck!
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Comments: 68
Thanks!
Thanks.
It's time
To share!
There are now clearly two categories of Gather membership - (1) those who reside in the USA and (2) to hell with the rest of them. That's despite Gather trumpeting that this site is for a world-wide community.
If it wasn't for the friendships I've made on Gather, I would leave. I might still do so. I resent being treated as inferior. It seems only in the PR spin doctoring that all members are welcomed and regarded as equal valuable members.
Kristen, this sounds wonderful, but I am concerned about giving up the rights. Has anyone come up with a definitive answer on this yet?
As Ed so kindly pointed out, these rules are only valid for the duration of the contest, and as I mentioned in my response to James, we include this wording in our official rules so that Gather can reserve the right to use contest submissions for promotional purposes (such as a press release, a winner announcement article, etc).
By entering our poetry contest, or any other Gather competition, you are not giving up the rights to your work. Please let me know if you have any other questions. Thank you!
Overall, I enjoy participating in Gather - but I resent being treated as a second rate.
God help you.
Till the 'tax rules' are sorted out it is better to say, "the contest is currently open to US citizens only due to tax rules problem" so that people like me don't have to waste their time. Alternatively you might send books of one's choice costing under $100 by post.
I look forward to the day when Gather becomes truly global community.
Perhaps you don't want to complicate things for the way Gather now runs, but you have lost some keynote contributors for this reason, and they are now working in other large networking communities and spreading the word about Gather...issueing warnings, and they should.
As a poet, I have concerns about the rights and I must consult with others who are in this business to be sure one hundred dollars is worth the possible consequences.
Our written words are our stock and trade and giving them away for a hundred dollars is hardly worth it ,especially if our right to publish in other arenas is restricted. A hundred bucks is...not much -and for a group this large...even less impressive. I've entered private contest with pizes in the thousands, and they do not ask you to waive any rights.
Still-the contest is fine as long as you aren't giving up the rights to your work.
Any potential renumeration received by Gather , for others' written work, should not belong to Gather. Gather's right should be promotional only . As far as I know...they cross the line if they garner compensation for your writing.
I don't write poetry often, but have been published. That was with "first rights" and the terminology of those rules was pretty standard. I am rather appalled at the comment above about this being "boilerplated", that simply is not true as a general statement. Perhaps it's true specifically in regards to Gather??
Guess I'll wait until a time when the rules are reasonable.
When Gather promotes a contest with the rules changed to "first rights", I'm also hoping add to the rules that an editing date is acceptable for entry, so that those who have already published a poem to Gather can use that same post to enter the contest, rather than have to do a new publish.
These types of legal disagreements are why America is becoming a less inventive, paranoid country and will eventually sink to second class everything. Some of these comments reminds me of the US congress -- a group of people that can't agree on much of anything. Our laws were pretty much established 200 years ago and new laws are usually made to aid a special interest group to cheat everyone else.
Gather can't even run a simple contest without people picking it apart.
I have lost count of how many spur of the moment limericks, humorous stories and quick images I've composed over 50 years just for fun, to make some people chuckle or laugh.
Borders (aka Gather) has to deal with the business end of the deal for Customs Declaration which ends up affecting taxes for the international scene. I'll agree that if they put a high enough priority on it, they can fix the situation. Maybe by concentrating on the EU, SA and the UK to start with since there are already fixed rates and methods of exchange in place for these entities. Then by dealing with other countries as the situations warrant.
OR, by stopping giving monetary awards.
Meanwhile, people, let's stop complaining and continue writing.
In this set of instructions we're told to click "save." HUH????
Lol -
Po'-try contest rules
Have me feelin' like a fool -
Publish it, or save?
.... also get to read the entrants' big or flashy ones .... ! 'good vers-a-tile ideas '!!
plz b more concerned to comment 'o' prompt reading mine & of course if
entered correctly .....!!!!!!!