Poetry Contests are Scams

I consider poetry contests to be a scam because they require a $25 fee for a poet to enter, and because the judges always award prizes to people who were students in their classes. It is all a rigged game where you pay $25 for judges to give to their friends, regardless of merit.

It is probably true that some 20 to 30 years ago poetry contests were actually more fair, but not any more. I never enter contests because I don't write the meaningless modernist crap which is the only type that "wins" those fake popularity contests.

Poetry contests should not require a fee. To enter hundreds of contests, at $25 each, one would spend at least a few thousand dollars, yet if one does not write in the very narrowly defined style of poetry endorsed by the academic system, the modernist lyric, one would never win, or ever get published.

When I started writing poetry 25 years ago, I read a lot of what was considered "good" poetry, yet I did not care for most of it. I like to read Shakespeare, Milton, Spenser, and Chaucer, therefore I write longer narrative verse, though I spent the last few years writing ballad style stories for singing.

I am currently writing an epic in blank verse about scientists, but it is so far outside the contemporary standard of poetry, that it would never have a chance of getting published, unless I publish it myself, after rigorous editing.

Poetry has since devolved, replaced by novels and motion pictures, from telling narrative stories, so that there is now a huge split in the type of poetry actually being written. There is the academic modernist lyric published in little journals and read at colleges and book stores, versus the blues/folk/rock/country/pop song lyric performed on stage by musicians.

Academic modernist lyrics, and popular song lyrics, generally deal with personal memories and romantic feelings, and little else. Few people pay attention to modernist lyrics in books, while many people actually pay lots of money for lyrics performed as songs, but they are generally more attracted to dancing and flashy videos than actual quality concepts or vision in the lyrics.

I have written about 8,000 poems, at about 300,000 lines total, over the past 25 years, and yet I am not considered a poet by contemporary standards. I am glad for that because I do not care for contemporary standards.

Basically, I consider poetry contests to be a scam because of the fee requirement. If contests were free, and if any type of poetry besides modernist lyric actually had a chance of being considered as worthy of a win, I would not consider them a scam.