Designing a poetry contest without selling our soul
Secret early bird submission link & insider scoops on how we’re trying to be ethical and writer-friendly (read: non-scammy).
Literary magazines and contests got married a long time ago. I’m not sure what the courting process was like back then, but I can imagine a meet-cute might have gone something like this:
Lit mag: I need money.
Contest: I give money to other people.
Lit mag: You are irrelevant to me.
Contest: But people will give you money in the hopes of me giving them money.
Lit mag: You are very relevant to me. Let’s get married and make infinite babies.
Okay, I’m not a romcom writer and now you know why. But, the point is that the biggest reason lit mags (as well as many, many indie presses) and contests are so intrinsic to each other is simple: money.
Lit mags don’t really have money (well, I could link you to a good number of non-profit lit mags right now that are sitting quite cushiony on their million-dollar hoards but like, I don’t wanna be startin’ somethin’ right this second).
The reality for most lit mags is that they have little overhead funding, and so outside of donations their main revenue generation is contests. It is common knowledge that the money lit mags make from running contests goes to, well, running the lit mag.
Some have annual contests they’ve been running for years or even decades. Some run several contests in the span of a single year and pay out huge sums of money (and take in a lot more). Some have fixed deadlines, while many others seem to extend these “fixed” deadlines for a variety of reasons (hint: it’s usually not because they actually want to read more work). Others might charge a fee but give out no monetary reward at all, or if they do give one, then it’s something nominal at best.
Indie lit is full of award-winning poems while awards for poets are reserved mostly for their books. We want to publish poets who make a home in our hearts with their voices and never leave.
A lot of lit mags have celebrity judges. Most of these judges do not read more than 10 or so selections from the entire submission pile. But every time I see a celebrity judge whose work I love (like Kelly Link judging the Nimrod prize this year), I kind of really want to fork over my $25-$35 right away. Maybe it’s some far-fetched hope that a famous writer will read my work, fall in love with it, and then fall in love with me as a writer, and then all my writing dreams will come true?
Perhaps some lit mags out there strike the perfect balance between submission fee, ethical judging, monetary payment, writer-friendliness, etc. Most likely, even if you think you’ve found the perfect lit mag + contest duo that does this, there will be other people who disagree.
Is it weird that this is the way we’ve chosen to let the curtains part on our own inaugural contest? Maybe. When Karan and I started ONLY POEMS in September 2023 with our poem-pocket-money (that is, the shillings we’d made from placing our poems in lit mags that year), one of the things we knew going in (and there was a whole lot we didn’t know) was that we’d be as transparent as possible about the way we’re creating this lit mag.
Yes, literature is not a money-game, but, also, since when did artists become so money-shy? In order for ONLY POEMS to do everything we hope for it to do and go all the places we hope for it to go, we know that we must baby-step towards self-sufficiency and enrichment.
By ‘self-sufficiency’, I mean covering all costs associated with the website, technical, design, poet payments, staff stipends, business expenses, and taxes.
By enrichment, I refer to all that ONLY POEMS as a lit mag can offer to poets and lovers of poetry everywhere: a platform that promotes the poet behind the poems, that creates a supportive and creative community, that offers real-world advice and insight into how to make a living as a writer and pursue a writing-based career, and champions good art, artists, editors, presses, and other beautiful lit mags out there!
The contest I’m about to announce is rooted in the desire for both self-sufficiency and enrichment.
The first ever ONLY POEMS PRIZE will open Friday, March 1 and close Tuesday, April 30.
The entry fee we have set is $15 which will include a comped 2-month Substack subscription (worth $14). Our hope is that every single poet who submits to the ONLY POEMS Prize receives more than just a contest entry. If you already have a paid subscription, we’ll add on two complimentary months to that). So, technically you’re paying $1 for the contest.
All winners will be selected by the ONLY POEMS Editors. Celebrity judges are usually paid around $500-$1000 to pick the winners from a small pool. We decided to use that money to pay a little more to the poets we publish.
Our Grand Prize winner will be named Poet of the Year and receive $3000. Two runner-ups will be awarded $300 each.
We will also name a few Honorable Mentions. The Poet of the Year will receive a lifetime comped subscription to the ONLY POEMS Substack. Runner-ups and all honorable mentions will receive a one year comped subscription.
As we do with our Poet of the Week series, we will publish 3-10 poems of all 3 winners alongside an extensive interview.
Indie lit is full of award-winning poems while awards for poets are reserved mostly for their books. We want to publish poets who make a home in our hearts with their voices and never leave.
That’s why this poetry award is not for the single best poem but rather for the poet whose body of work we feel is or will be full of one award-winning poem after another.
We will not require anyone to withdraw their poems if they get swiped by another publication. Even if all the poems in your submitted packet get published, that’s fine (and so freakin’ cool!). You will not be ineligible for the ONLY POEMS PRIZE—if we are interested in your work, we will find a way to work with you.
We’re not sure how much we’ll make from this contest. We’re hoping, of course, at least to make enough to cover the prize itself. A little more would be nice. A lot more would be, well, a lot nicer. Arts deserve funding. Artists deserve it even more. Here’s to, hopefully, a year of fortune and fortitude for us all!
We also request you all to share this post within your communities. Since we’re a new lit mag and the ONLY POEMS PRIZE will be our first ever contest, this will go a long way for us! Thank you so much. :)
Pssst, if you’ve made it this far, here’s the secret early bird link to submit for $11 (and still get the 2-month comp). This will change over to $15 on March 1st.
Something I’ve been wondering. Some contests seem to have the same poets pop up as winners/finalists year after year. I don’t necessarily think contests are rigged, just that editors are humans like the rest of us, who are bound to be drawn to the kinds of voices they love again and again. I always thought that having guest judges was a way to prevent that. But if the judge really only reads the top ten-ish poems—$500-$1000 to read ten poems? Wow!—that wouldn’t really prevent repeat winners / finalists. I’m excited about this first contest, and continue to be excited about the community you’re building.
Do you consider that sharing a poem on a personal Substack or other social media makes that poem "previously published?" Or do you mean published or curated in the traditional sense by a lit mag or journal?