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

The Margaret Reid Prize for Traditional Verse and the Tom Howard Poetry Contest for Verse In All Styles and Genres

THE MARGARET REID CONTEST IS NOW OPEN! SEE BELOW FOR DETAILS! The $5,800 Tom Howard Poetry Contest for Verse In All Styles and Genres is also now open. Please visit http://tomhowardpoetry.bravepages.com for full contest details. The Tom Howard Contest will accept all styles and genres of poetry and verse, including prose poems, storoems, etc. The prize money for the 10th Tom Howard Poetry Contest will be distributed as follows: 

First Prize: $3,000. Second: $1,000. Third: $400. Fourth: $250. Plus a Special Prize of $250 for the Best Humorous Poem. Plus six Most Highly Commended Awards of $150 each. Eleven cash awards in all, including a First Prize of $3,000.

Grand total: $5,800.

 

   

The 2012 Margaret Reid Poetry Prize for Traditional Verse

What is traditional? We intend to tighten up the rules for the 2013 awards, but this year anything goes EXCEPT prose poems. If your entry LOOKS LIKE POETRY, we will will accept it this year. Take a look at some of the poems in Margaret's book:

 

This page provides information on 

The Margaret Reid Poetry Prize 

for Traditional Verse

Here is the concluding stanza of "Love Song", a poem by Margaret Reid herself, taken from her book, "Song of the Wayward Wind":

 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.

 

Of course, 19th century verse forms are also sought for this contest. Here is a sonnet from Margaret's book, "LOVE & CITY DREAMING":

I hoard the wardrobe changes of the skies

Those fearsome upturned seas of hissing sprays

A churning universe where passions rise

As silver flares ignite the warring grays

Now rings a change to powdered azure lake

Where tufty goslings float the huge expanse

Stampeding buffalo join in their wake

While clowns cavort in fuzzy summer dance

Evening holograms hurl copper shards

Scrimping highest drama for the last

With sights to tune the dullest of the bards

As molten suns through scarlet seas are cast

What spectacle, what pleasures of surprise

Attend the sliding theater of the skies!

 

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. PLEASE NOTE THAT OWING TO COPYRIGHT RESTRICTIONS, THERE WILL BE NO KINDLE OR E-BOOK EDITIONS OF ANY OF OUR PRIZEWINNING POETRY ANTHOLOGIES. PRINTED EDITIONS ONLY ARE AVAILABLE. There are, however, Kindle editions of "Song of the Wayward Wind" and "Love and City Dreaming". 

 

You need a good title for your poem, a title that is attractive, that stands out and that gives all the right read me signals. Some titles hold little or no appeal to potential readers, and some are total turn-offs. Until now, choosing the right title has been a hit-or-miss affair for everyone except movie studios. Any publicist for a movie studio can tell you straight away whether a title will attract people, leave them indifferent, or actually turn them away. In this book, you'll quickly identify not only the words that audiences have found so attractive that Hollywood has used them over and over, but the words that antagonized people to such an extent that the few movies that used this word were withdrawn and re-titled. If you already have a title, check out how often each word has been used. You can be pretty certain that words Hollywood has rarely or never used in a movie title, will also repel book buyers. On the other hand, you can construct an attractive title from Hollywood's frequently used words and phrases. The Kindle edition is at present available for only 99 cents. Please click the Amazon link that has no price information.   

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

The normal trade edition sells for $12.50. Buy from Amazon, Barnes and Noble and other bookstores. Amazon have also now published a Kindle edition for $2.99! Please click this link: Write Ways to WIN WRITING CONTESTS Other e-book retailers such as Barnes and Noble, Sony, Apple, etc., also stock WRITE WAYS TO WIN WRITING CONTESTS in an updated 2011 edition for $3.99. What's $2.99 or $3.99 or even $12.50 compared to increasing your chances of carrying off that $3,000 in cash First Prize?

 

The 9th annual Margaret Reid Poetry Prize for Traditional Verse is NOW OPEN. A total of $5,550 will be awarded in prize-money as follows: 

First Prize: $3,000. Second: $1,000. Third: $400. Fourth: $250. Plus six High Distinction Awards of $150 each. Ten cash awards in all, including that First Prize of $3,000.

Grand total: $5,550. The judges reserve the right to present ADDITIONAL CASH AWARDS to meritorious entries.

 

Song of the Wayward Wind is now on sale at Amazon and leading booksellers.

 

 

The Margaret Reid Poetry Prize for Traditional Verse IS NOW OPEN. For full details and online submission and mailing address please click this link: http://winningwriters.com/contests/margaret/ma_guidelines.php

Total Prize money: $5,550 (as listed above).

Entry fee: $8 for every 25 lines (or part thereof). Blank lines and titles are not counted.

VERY FEW RESTRICTIONS 

Send as many poems as you like. No restrictions on length or subject matter. Poems must be your original work, but previously published poems and poems that have won prizes in other contests are welcome.  

 

Entry forms are not necessary, but by entering this contest you agree to abide by all its conditions. Decisions by the chief judge are final. 

 

Winners retain all rights and are free to accept or decline offers of free print publication in an anthology similar to SAILING IN THE MIST OF TIME, featured above. However, you must agree to publication of your winning entry on the Winning Writers website.

 

Entries must be POSTMARKED on or before July 1, 2012, or lodged online before midnight, June 30, 2012, Pacific Time.

 

Online submission using your credit card or PayPal IS AVAILABLE at Winning Writers. Please use this link: http://www.winningwriters.com/contests/margaret/ma_guidelines.php

 

 

Postal submissions may be sent to Winning Writers, Attention Margaret Reid Contest, 351 Pleasant Street, PMB 222, Northampton, MA 01060-3961, USA. The entry fee of US$8 for every 25 lines may be paid by check (payable to Winning Writers at a USA bank), cash, or money order

 

 

Chief judge: John Howard Reid. Associate judge: Dee C. Konrad. 

   

   

The Tom Howard Poetry Contest for Verse In All Styles and Genres

IS NOW OPEN! To celebrate the opening of this year's contest, a new anthology of poems by Tom Howard, ESCAPE TO PARADISE AND OTHER POETIC FANCIES, has just been published. See Amazon link below. Please visit http://tomhowardpoetry.bravepages.com for full contest details. This contest will accept all styles and genres of poetry and verse, including prose poems, storoems, etc. The prize money for the 10th Contest will be distributed as follows: 

First Prize: $3,000. Second: $1,000. Third: $400. Fourth: $250. Plus a Special Price of $250 for the Best Humorous Poem. Plus six Most Highly Commended Awards of $150 each. Eleven cash awards in all, including a First Prize of $3,000.

Grand total: $5,800.

 

   

MARGARET REID 2011 RESULTS

First Prize $3,000: Jacie Ragan for In the Shadow of the Condor 

Second Prize $1,000: Sherri Felt Dratfield for Time Pieces Restored 

Third Prize $400: Shirley Valencia for An Overcast Morning on Mulberry Street     

Fourth Prize $250: Helen Bar-Lev for The Path to a Village

Six Most Highly Commended Awards of $150 each (random order): Beverly Barksdale for 1960;  Duane Dodson for The Cravin'; Nicole Grace for The Golden Fox; Caroline Zarlengo Sposto for Sleeping Beauty -- Au Courant; Anne-Marie Cadwallader for Brother and I;  Phill Doran for A Crown of Sonnets.

VERY HIGHLY COMMENDED (random order): Devon by Beverly Scheelar Preston; Adieu by Caroline Zarlengo Sposto; April in Tokyo and Tothill by Patricia Tiger; Mallory's Dream by Charlotte Dawe; The Hermit of King's Lynn by Charlotte Dawe; Honeycake by Judith Goldhaber; Casenotes by Aliene Pylant; Pantoum of Ruin by Marte Broehm; Escondido - Chicago: Taken-In by Marte Broehm; Tristesse by Johnmichael Simon; Maria Makiling by Elizabeth Davies; Name Each Room Our Different Forgetting by Andrea Watson; Jacinta of this Valley Will Not Attend Convent School Today by Andrea Watson; Great Blue by Bernard Mann; Fukushima Calling by Bernard Mann; Dreamcatchers by  Bernard Mann; Maggie Amanda Jones at Ninety by John Barrale; Melville: September 28, 1891 by John Barrale; The Sprinter by Louis Giron; Bountiful by Louis Giron; The Plane in the Hudson River by Mark Wagenaar; Three-Card Monte by Mark Wagenaar; Revenant by Mark Wagenaar; Demon valkyrie by N.A. Rosas; Ip Op Penumbra by Tamara C. Peters; On Seeing Medea by Frank Salvidio; Singles Bar by Frank Salvidio; Recollection: Two Sonnets by Frank Salvidio; When Our Skin Touches by Fred Kruger; Perspectives: Seeing Our War Veterans In the March of Time by Fred Kruger; Journeying in the Realm of Love by Fred Kruger; The Long White Mane by Theodora Chutkow; Motionless Moment by Theodora Chutkow; 'Twas Months after New Year's by Irving N. Rothman; His Excellency the Bat by Evans Simubali; Child's Play by Sherwin Kaufman; Views from a Window in Spanish Harlem by Ellen Ficarra; A Stray by Anne-Marie Cadwallader; Early Spring at Racy Point by Jenny Gale; A Song of Green by Lynn N. Roberson.