Thank you!

[The kurlman]

Go to RHYME ZONE POETRY CONTEST 2014/2015, YOU SHOULD FIND THE WINNERS

[Glen MItton]

where is the list of winners for the understanding contest m I'm a little lost thanks

[The kurlman]

Solace_Zeta, you wrote a really great article, I agree almost 100%, maybe 85% would be closer, submit only one or two poems for the contest seems like a good idea! I do think submitting other poems for pure entertainment or critiquing would be useful and helpful, having more judges, sounds like a good idea. Thanks for your thoughts they were good ones! The kurlman

[Solace_Zeta]

Dear RhymeZone Community,

Feedback for a future contest based on this one:

I want to say thank you to rhymezone and its staff for doing this contest! Nearly all of us feel that it was a great experience and at the very least served to produce a new poem for us. That being said, I want to offer some feedback about the contest and the way it was done in hopes of improving it if it turns out to be an annual prize.

First off, making it a free entry is something that is extra special, and I think should, if possible, be left that way in the future. Most contests require an entry fee and kudos to you guys for not doing that. Us unpublished and unknown starving poets appreciate it tremendously.

Secondly, I think that in the future, you should make it so that there is a limit of one entry per contestant. I don't really see any great reasons for allowing people to submit an infinite number of entries. It serves to be inefficient and ultimately unnecessary. I think most people would agree that it would be more fair and proper to limit everyone to one entry for the contest per contestant. It was nice of you to allow people to submit as many as they wanted, but in looking at the submissions, it turned out that many people turned in poems that had very very little to do with the contest topic. Honestly, it's a gross waste of time trying to shift through entries that have nothing to do with the topic, especially when they number in the hundreds. If a little more than 3000 people participated and there were over 3500 entries, that means one in seven such entries was probably superfluous. Not to mention, if somebody did happen to have two really good submissions, and both made it to the final selection, because only one per contestant can win, it's taking the place of another potential winner and that's just simply unfair. Maybe some of you disagree with me, but I feel very strongly that having only one entry per person would do a lot to help the contest rather than hinder it.

Lastly, I'm not sure how to say this, but I'm still trying to figure this out: "[we] loaded them [the contest entries] into a custom software tool that made it easier to read through the entries more efficiently. Using this tool we picked several hundred finalists from the submissions." I would like some more information about what exactly this tool is and what it does to make it easier to read through them. If nothing else, as a poetry teacher, I would like to know because I'm often grading dozens if not hundreds of poems, and that could be useful information for me. Not to mention, in the future it may help some of us tailor our poems better to fit the selection criteria. How you read through poems more efficiently is quite beyond me. Did it use some kind of way to identify structures or rhymes? What did this tool do and how did it do it?

The poor judges, five in all, were faced with the task of going through 3,500+ poems. Even giving each poem a fair once through reading would mean each judge had only 28 days to go through 700 poems each. And then, give a closer reading to the finalists selected. Honestly, you should expand the number of judges and give them more time. Even with this magic poetry reading tool, that's a nearly impossible task to give a fair reading in only 28 days of 3500+ poems by 5 people. I don't think it's crazy of me to suggest the following:

1. Expand the panel to ten judges.
2. Give the judges at least one month per thousand entries.

In closing, I also advocate what someone else suggested about collecting all the entries into a massive collection for publication. I suggest online, here in the rhymezone community, and perhaps starting a thread for a volunteer committee to put it together and try to edit it, and give the authors the opportunity to say whether they have permission to do it. In the future as well, you could tell the people who submit entries that by submitting they agree to allow their work to appear in a compilation of the contest entries. Anyway, thank you everyone for your time and attention and I wish you all happy days writing more poetry to share with all of us at rhymezone.

Best regards,

Solace_Zeta

[Lainie]

Those whose poem did not win here might want to submit their piece to another contest, and may not want their piece published at this point. Usually only unpublished pieces are permitted for most contests. I believe Rhyme Zone would need the author's permission the include their poem in a periodical.

[John Wertz]

I also want to thank Rhyme Zone for the contest. I had a lot of fun with it and wound up writing a piece that I would not have thought of otherwise. There were lots of wonderful submissions, some I enjoyed more the the Wallace Stevens I'm reading at the moment!

[The kurlman]

Thank you for liking my poem, The kurlman

[Nickbagelboy]

Thank you The kurlman!! Btw, great poem, man. Sad, but beautiful. That shit touched me.

[Naradtales]

Thank you rhymezone for this wonderful contest. I had a wonderful time penning down both my poems for this theme. A good opportunity for people like me, who like to write for the fun of it Looking forward to next year's contest!

[The kurlman]

Go back to the contest page, they are listed!

[Nickbagelboy]

Hello, I was just wondering if they announced the winners yet?? I haven't seen a page on here saying it, and the other page, the "official contest page" says to check back for the winners, but after the countdown hit zero, there was nothing on the page. Thank you for your help!!

[Jiynx Diablo]

I guess it was okay...The rhyming stuff and all...urk!

[Staryou]

print them all

[simplycomplex]

Observation: It's unlikely that many people did this for the money involved, and there were some very good posts. Has anyone given any thought to having some of the entries bound into a book/periodical? Odds are the costs involved could be recovered via sales, as long as the point to it didn't become the sales per se.

In principle I think that is an amazing idea. Also means a lot of reading so a staff of some sort, and the unenviable job of deciding what doesn't make "the cut."

Still once the ball started rolling it could go smoothly. Next years edition easier still.

[D.F.Russell]

Observation: It's unlikely that many people did this for the money involved, and there were some very good posts. Has anyone given any thought to having some of the entries bound into a book/periodical? Odds are the costs involved could be recovered via sales, as long as the point to it didn't become the sales per se.