Poetry.com

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Poetry.com is the website of The International Library of Poetry, an organization considered by many to be a vanity publisher. Poetry.com coordinates monthly poetry contests and other services through its website, though the actual competitive nature of these contests is disputed. The site's primary purpose seemingly is the sale of poetry anthologies containing poems submitted by aspiring authors, and invitations to poetry conventions hosted by the group.


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[edit] Contests and conventions

Poetry.com invites most poets who submit work to the "semi-finals" of these competitions, seemingly without regard to the subject matter or poetic quality of the submission. In order to attend one of the organization's poetry conventions, the authors must pay an individual entrance fee of USD$595, which does not include travel, food, or lodging.

In order to qualify for the contest, a poem must be written in 20 lines or less, with a maximum of 60 characters per line. The author must also enter his or her mailing address in order for the poem to be judged in the contest. There are no other guidelines and, apparently, no artistic or academic criteria against which the submitted poems are judged.

The group compiles submitted poems into anthology-like books, which are then offered for sale to the prospective authors and to the public. These volumes are generally priced at USD$49.95 each and include all of the poems selected for the "semi-finals" of the poetry contest (in fact, virtually all of the contest submissions, regardless of quality). These books are generally considered to be of low quality, are over 500 pages in length and include at least six poems per page [1]. It is primarily for this reason that many authors consider Poetry.com (and similar groups) to be a vanity press.

It should also be noted that they will often mail the authors of the poems accepted into the anthology-like books and tell them that they may for an additional cost record their poem onto a CD that will be sold along with the anthology. All who accept the offer will then be placed onto poor quality CD that is a continuous loop of poetry readings of all participants. The CD does not feature any set list, and will sometimes distort parts of words.

[edit] Criticism

There have been a number of complaints to organizations in the United States, such as the Better Business Bureau, by those who feel they have been mislead by Poetry.com. Some consider the International Library of Poetry and its activities to be a fraud and/or a scam; they cite the fact that Poetry.com's promotional materials lead participating writers to believe that their poems were selected for the website's monthly contest because of their quality, when in fact virtually all submissions "advance" to the semi-finals. At that point, the would-be authors are encourged to spend money on copies of the compilation books and/or visits to the poetry conventions.

Additionally, although Poetry.com's website claims that these books are available at "major bookstores" [2], attempts to purchase these books from major retailers such as Barnes and Noble or Amazon.com generally fail.

As of November 2006, there is no verifiable report of any successful legal action being taken against the company for alleged fraud.


[edit] Similar organizations

Poetry.com is affiliated with other organizations known as International Society of Poetry, Watermark Press, and the International Poetry Hall of Fame. A number of organizations, such as Picture.com, offer similar contests and in other fields such as art.

[edit] Notes

  • Winning Writers hosts the Wergle Flomp Humor Poetry Contest in which parody poems submitted to Poetry.com may be entered for cash prizes.

[edit] External links

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