Poetry by Popular Acclaim
Did the recent eclipse inspire you to write a haiku? Do you obsessively write sonnets by moonlight? Then you are in good company.
I’m running a poetry contest for any type of formal verse 30 lines or under. The deadline is April 20. The judging for the contest has a twist: everyone who submits will also be a contest judge. Each participant will get to review a complete list of anonymized entries and vote for their three favorite poems. I’ll tally all the votes, see which three entries have the most, and send modest cash prizes to the winners.
The rationale for the contest is twofold: (1) there isn’t enough good formal poetry in the world, and (2) I really want to see what happens if a poetry contest is judged by more than just a few people. Other poetry contests have a single poor bloke (or at most 3) who sift through all the entries trying to decide what’s best. But what if the judging of poetry could be outsourced to… the poets themselves? The Vox Poetry Contest is a social experiment to find out. More details here.