The 2012 Tom Howard Poetry Contest for Verse in All Styles & Genres is now open. Please scroll right down this page. 

The 2012 Margaret Reid Poetry Prize for Traditional Verse is also now open.

What is traditional? The judges' definition is loose rather than strict. We quote a poem from Margaret's book:

The Kindle links on this page are the ones that carry no price information.

This page provides information on 

The Tom Howard Poetry Contest 

for all styles and genres

and

The Margaret Reid Poetry Prize 

for Traditional Verse

What do we mean by "traditional" verse? In short, one qualification is poetry that looks like poetry, not prose. Fox example:

love is a book

a hopeful dream

a tide of delight

or a gallant search

for sorrows unseen

Now that little verse of mine may not be good poetry. And traditionalists might well object to the absence of capitals and lack of any punctuation marks. But it looks like poetry, and therefore it is acceptable as an entry for the Margaret Reid Poetry Prize.

Another way of looking at "traditional" is to think of poetic styles and genres that have been fashionable for at least 50 years or more. This would include free verse. Here is a poem by Margaret Reid herself, taken from her book, "Song of the Wayward Wind":

LOVE SONG

  Yes, my love, I hear,

      of course I hear...

Your meaning gossamers

        across pauses

wraps around your words

     its sweetest nectar

     and my spirit dances

              dances

    through green valleys

              dances

 in the springtime chorus

       of your meaning

   dances white orchards

            of delight.

 Yes, my love, I hear. I hear

     between your words

        rich symphonies

And in the silent reach of mind,

         I walk with you

           through stars.

So here is another way of looking at "traditional". Poetry that uses repetition or some other formal or informal pattern that could involve rhyme, meter, length of line, or even simply the way the lines of verse are positioned! 

However, experimental forms are also welcome. The criteria once again is that the verse form must look like poetry, and (unless it has at least a whiff of poetic imagination) not have the appearance of a block of prose.

The only new verse forms that will not be accepted for the Margaret Reid Prize are prose poems or storoems. And the good news is that in the rare event the judges feel your entry does not qualify as "traditional", it will not be rejected but simply transferred to the Tom Howard Poetry Contest instead.    

SAILING IN THE MIST OF TIME is our fourth and very latest Anthology of Prize-Winning Poetry. Containing over 100 winning entries from both the Margaret Reid and Tom Howard Poetry Contests, this beautiful book normally costs only $16.50! That in itself is a bargain, but in a special promotion, Amazon and other online bookstores currently have this large-format, 194-page book on sale for a mere $9.95!

As noted above, the trade edition is now on sale in bookstores throughout the U.S.A., Canada and Great Britain. 

Absolute-must reading for all competition contestants! A new, expanded edition of my famous handbook "WRITE WAYS TO WIN WRITING CONTESTS: How to Join the Winners' Circle for Short Story Awards, Poetry Prizes, etc." is now available.