*See all of our writing contests

Purpose: Have fun, enjoy the competition, and become a better poet by participating in our peer critique process for this contest.

Who Can Enter: This contest is open to all poets. All submissions must be posted and assigned critiques completed by February 28, 2010. Poems must be 50 lines or fewer. You may post additional poems to this site for critique, but only one poem will be eligible for this contest.

Subject Matter: Open, you choose. The poem should adhere to our content policy.

Prizes: The winner of this contest will receive $100.

How to Enter: It’s pretty easy

1. Create a free account or sign in for existing members.
2. Upload your poem; make sure you select Poetry Contest as the category.
3. Submit your poem for peer critique.
4. Complete your assigned reviews, this is discussed more below.

Decisions: There will be 3 rounds of judging.

1. Authors from the Review Fuse staff will select the 10 best poems for Round 2.
2. Of these 10 poems, Review Fuse management will select the 5 authors who gave the most detailed and well thought out critiques of their peer’s poetry for Round 3.
3. The winner will then be selected by 3 creative writing and poetry professors.

• Find out more about what our judges think great poetry is.

Entry Fee: There are no entry fees or purchases of any kind required to enter and win the contest. After you submit your poem to the contest you will be required to complete assigned critiques of other poets (4 for free members and 2 for premium members). You will receive 3 critiques of your poem in return. Those who do not complete their critiques will not be eligible to win the contest.

Rights: All poems remain the sole property of the author. After we have selected the winner we will seek permission from the author to publish the winning poem on our blog. The author is under no obligation to allow this.

Notification: The prize winner will be notified by email on March 13, 2010. We will announce the prize winner on our blog on March 15, 2010.

[Poets are] men stepping on clouds, snaring a world of beauty from the trees and sky, half wild, half human.

— Dylan Thomas

Poetry should be personal and imaginative. It should show your feelings and emotions.

As the freest form of writing poets often struggle to set the bounds each poem will live within. Without bounds you cannot have poetry.

Freedom is not doing what you want when you want to. Freedom is knowing how to use the rules to enhance your writing. Like all art forms, poets need practice, knowledge, and commitment to succeed.

What is poetry to you?

I know we’ve had a lot of poetry-related posts on the Fuse Blog recently, but in honor of April being National Poetry Month, I’d like to make a recommendation for a great book about writing poetry: The Ode Less Travelled: Unlocking the Poet Within by Stephen Fry.

My sister recommended this book to me when she was helping us work on our poetry review framework. Now hopefully all our poets will forgive me for this small confession: I’m not really that into poetry. I read and write mostly short stories, fiction novels, and screen plays. However, I’m amazed how much I’ve enjoyed The Ode Less Traveled (I’m not quite done), and how much it makes me want to try my hand at writing some poetry. Fry has a great way of explaining poetry concepts so they’re easy to easy to understand and fun to read. He tackles meter, rhyme, rhythm, stanza length, enjambment, and even content and subject matter–all with an enjoyable, charming wit. Even if you have no intention of writing poetry, the book is a fun read and will give you a better appreciation of the art.

If you need more reasons to read the book (you shouldn’t by now), Stephen Fry is also the actor who plays Deitrich in V for Vendetta (Deitrich is Evey’s friend from the TV network who hides her after she’s see with V) and the reader of several of the Harry Potter audio books.

Even if you choose not to read Fry’s book, be sure to do something to celebrate National Poetry Month: submit a poem to Review Fuse, or read and review some poems in our community’s catalog of public submissions. Take the time to do something to appreciate the beauty and art of poetry.

-Clark