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

Yes, we will accept and award cash prizes to poems of all types and genres including comic and humorous verse in both the Margaret Reid Poetry Contest and the Tom Howard Contest. In the latter contest, we will also award a special $250 bonus prize to the best humorous submission. Here's a link to one of the Chief Judge's own anthologies of humorous poems: NIBBLES OF NONSENSE. Other useful books are "7 Solid Roads to Writing Success" and "How Writers Win Favor with Judges & Editors". Periodically, you can download "7 Solid Roads to Writing Success" from Amazon entirely FREE OF CHARGE. The next FREE DAYS are June 2 and June 3. The next FREE day for "How Writers Win Favor with Judges & Editors" is June 30. Yet another essential handbook is "Poetry Pitfalls or What Makes Bad Verse Worse". The next free days are June 1, June 2 and June 3. And one more little handbook, but an important one: "Correct Writing Formats for Contests and Publishers". Free days for this one are May 18, 19 and 20. Can't wait? You can download copies of these books immediately for only 99 cents each.

Visit http://johnreid.exactpages.com for a complete list of all JHR's FREE E-BOOKS.

"Nibbles of Nonsense Hilarious Comic Verse" plus the free copies of "7 Solid Roads to Writing Success", "How Writers Win Favor with Judges & Editors", "Correct Writing Formats for Contests and Publishers" and "Poetry Pitfalls" are also available in the U.K., Germany, France, Italy and Spain, but you will need to do a search at the local Amazon Kindle for these books.

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.