Arvon Competition and Dosh

Very true, but It's nice to get some bunce on occasion. I don't enter competitions myself these days, however. Too tired. My advice would be to scan the admission form carefully and make sure the judges get to read all the submissions. It's been my experience that anything that's the slightest bit adventurous won't get through if readers choose what the judges are to see. If you want to buy my book, visit my blog: http://whatisthisstrangeplace.blogspot.com/

I think if there are 'name' judges involved and it's a major competition, it's highly unlikely they'd read all the entries, simply because there'll be thousands and good poets generally don't like to spend several days reading bad poetry. On Jude's original point, I think competitions are important for poets because - if you do reach the point where you consider yourself a professional or even semi-professional poet - competitions are the only way you can earn remotely serious money. £5000 may not be much compared to the average corporate bonus but it adds up to reasonable number of shifts behind the bar that the poet can choose to not to do, in favour of staying at home and writing some poems. There's a suggestion that the TS Eliot prize for best collection, which I think is £10,000, is usually awarded to the short-listed poet who happens to be nearest to destitution at the time in a bid to save them from having to get a real job. Unfortunately no living poets apart from Seamus Heaney make enough money from book sales to have a decent standard of living but several hundred people in the UK, possibly several thousand, see themselves primarily as poets.

I was talking of competitions in general rather than just poetry, Bobble. I've never entered a poetry comp. In short story competitions you'll usually be told on the entry form whether the judges will see all the entries. My point is that it's not much use entering a story you think X named judge might respond to if they're never going to see it. Professional readers tend to be on the conservative side. If you want to buy my book, visit my blog: http://whatisthisstrangeplace.blogspot.com/