Why don't I enter poetry competitions?

Because I don’t enjoy reading the crowd-pleasing poems that tend to win.

Because competitions implicitly and involuntarily encourage poets to write crowd-pleasers.

Because I write poems that are apparently simple, that accumulate layers, that would never stand out in a mass of fireworks.

Because I don’t write to win competitions. I write for my potential readers. I write for the conversations that individual poems strike up among themselves and with those readers in the context of a magazine or a collection.

What about you...?

Everybody loves a winner!

Everybody loves a winner, that’s for sure, and the poetry world’s no different, though winners create losers too.

Certain losers could complain bitterly, seething with resentment, that they’re being ignored by major awards, and they could set up an important poetry prize for poems that are unsuitable for competitions. Or they could launch a subtle coup and take over an existing award. Of course, they’d also have to name judges who have been ignored up till now.

But then, once the winning poems had been chosen, others would inevitably kick back against the decision and generate an alternative award for the poems that hadn’t been selected. Or launch yet another coup. With a new batch of judges. Starting all over again. And again. And again. Just as generation follows generation, establishment follows establishment.

Or we could read, write and explore beyond prizes and awards, relying on our own tastes and judgements instead of invoking the Emperor’s New Clothes on a regular basis…

Villalejo on display

Here are two photos of Villalejo on display at the National Library of Scotland. Many thanks to Kate Hendry for sending them through!

National Library of Scotland poetry competition

I'm chuffed to report that my poem Villalejo has won the National Library of Scotland's "From Home to Beyond" poetry competition.

Villalejo will consequently form part of the Library's summer treasures display, "Voices from the Commonwealth", until the end of August. Now that's a lovely prize!