What About Poetry Contests?

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Have you ever witnessed people competing in a poetry contest? I have. Of course, you can't witness submitted poems to judges that are on paper. There are programs out there however, where poetry is preformed. I went to a NAMI (National Allience for Mental Illness) Convention in Seattle and saw different poets compete. They had their poems memorized, and while preforming, they had their rhythm down. I was glad I did not enter, for I don't have my poems memorized, I've written way too many. I have been surprised on occasion when other people have recited my poems back to me, (I do remember a line of what I've written here and there, and definitely the subject matter) Anyway, the NAMI poetry contest performance was very enjoyable. If you ever have the chance to go to something like that, I highly recommend it. I have done poetry readings that were not contests, and I've read my poems from paper there. If you ever get the chance to attend one: GO! I love participating or simply attending.

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Why do I bring this up? I'm bringing contests up because I don't often enter them, and only when there's no fee. If you read my blog, you will see I did enter a Goodreads Contest and won 7th place (out of hundreds) with my poem "Talking Walls", which I never preformed. I really should make a YouTube video of that one. While I don't usually enter a poetry contest with a reading fee, I plan to next month. Why? Because I've met the people putting it on. A woman from the foundation taught a free class at my local library. I went to see if she taught poetry the same way I used to. She actually did teach it the same way. It's going to cost $20 for each 3 poems entered. Not bad, and of course, there's cash prizes at the end. Wish me luck!

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I have actually judged poetry contests before, back in High School. My teacher and poetry club Facilitator invited me to do it. These were written poems that I got to read and judge along with another lady (older adult). We had to agree on the ones we liked. Then the best ones were published. While I am a writer of poetry, I don't think you need to be a Writer to judge poetry, just an Appreciater. We all judge poems automatically when we read or hear them anyway. Honestly, I don't usually enter contests, because I'd rather just have mine published and get paid for it. When you think about it though, every time you submit a poem for publication, you're entering a contest, fee or no fee.

For an update on my New Year's Resoluton: I did write a couple reviews in February, and a few this month too. No poetry however. I have 3 poems to write now and enter into the contest in April. I really want to get back to my books too, Seasons of Sensation, or even my short stories or romance book I've got partly written. I wish you happy reading, viewing, writing, and/or preforming!

Welcome To The Heart Month

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First, I want to say I did do one writing thing for January. I entered a contest writing about my happiest moment as a caregiver, (one of the times I took my daughter horseback riding). It wasn't a writing contest per sé but it did have the requirement of 300 words or more, so I'm counting it as a writing thing. Not sure when or if I'll hear back, the deadline was the 31st of January. Hopefully I'll be able to do another writing thing in February, whether that's working on my book(s), or submitting poems for publication, or writing reviews, or anything that has anything to do with writing. I'm working hard on focusing on the positive, I'm internally criticizing myself so hard. That's not very good for my nerves, or heart. And of course, February is the heart month, both the physical and emotional heart.

I'm sure the emotional part is thanks to Saint Valentines Day. I'm guessing that people wanting to bring awareness to heart health decided it would be congruess having the physical heart month attached to the emotional heart month. To me personally, they are very intertwined. Sometimes my heart is heavy, (pun intended,) because my Grandmother died of a heart attack when I was a young teenager. Not only that, most people have to live through the pain of their grandparents dying, but practically all of my Dad's family has heart problems, and my Dad has had many heart attacks. Fortunately he is still alive and doing everything he can to keep his heart healthy. According to my echocardiogram, my heart is doing well despite the occasional bout of heartburn. So what's Heart month got to do with poetry? Well that's easy to answer, poetry is the language of the heart!

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Poetry is the expression of emotion, a word which is often a synonym of the word heart. While I named my first poetry book "Un-Clenched Emotion" it could have easily been "Unclenched Heart". I poured my heart out when I wrote those poems, just like whenever I write any poem. I'm sure any poet would tell you the same. The other reason I'm writing out the theme of the month of February is because it's something I would often do in my poetry classes: ask the students to write about the month we're in or about a Holiday we're near. That got me the idea,  and many written poems, for "Seasons of Sensation". If your struggling with ideas to write this month, write about February. If you're a reader, read some poetry in celebration of the month. 

  

                                                    

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Or don't read poetry at all, read other stuff that has to do with February. Since it's African American History Month as I well, I do reccomend reading some poems by Phillis Wheatley, a Women African American Poet from the late 1700's. She was a slave who became educated and then later freed. Of course, there are also many more things you can read for African History month as well, like Fedrick Douglass's autobiography, or the speeches of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. February is also the awareness month of many things. For breveity's sake of this blog, we'll just focus on February being heart month. If you want, you could read non-fiction medical books on the heart. You never know where a person's interests lie, I happen to like physics books, both science fiction and non-fiction books. Be sure to take care of your hearts, both emotional and physical!

2/13/2026 

Today, A few days after I first wrote this post, I went to look and see my rankings on the seller list for books (I was ranked low) and I ended up looking at AI summarizing my reviews. Here's what it says today (I notice it changes every so often, despite not getting more reviews):

I immediately noticed that someone said the "heart" was a well-spring of feelings. I thought, how fitting for the blog I just wrote! Than I started to read my reviews to see if I could find this particular one. I couldn't find it, but noticed that the word heart was all over the place in my reviews. That's great, that means that this blog is relevant to my poetry. Thanks for reading!