Don't know what a 'sifter' is? Read this blog first.
Tip # 2
Don’t write a ‘competition poem’
So you’re going to write a poem to submit to a poetry competition. Great. But, don’t be tempted to engineer a poem that ticks as many ‘competition’ boxes as it can. Why? Because a poem like that is formulaic. To a sifter’s expert eyes, poems that follow a 'winning' formula are unoriginal and sterile, which does not impress. But, the worse thing about formulaic poems is that they stink of cynicism, and any poetry judge, as a lover of poetry, will be disinclined to select a poem which is cynical about poetry.
"Poems that follow a 'winning' formula are unoriginal and sterile, which does not impress."
When I’m sifting a batch of poems there are always at least 2 or 3 that are obvious copies of poems that won other competitions in other years. Whenever I encounter such a knock-off, I reject it, even if it’s good. The fact of the matter is that the sifter is looking for a new winner, not a repeat of an old one. Not only that, but the sifter also has the integrity of the competition to uphold; if an awarding body gave prizes to the same old formulaic stuff every year, then the prestige of the prize wouldn’t be worth a button.
"The sifter is looking for a new winner, not a repeat of an old one."
That said, formulaic knock-offs wouldn’t be written unless there were indeed formulas to knock off. It’s true that these days, the same kinds of features are often seen again and again in prize-winning poems. Here are some of them:
First person anecdote of a lived experience
A single moment of insight derived from said experience
A twist ending or ‘punchy’ last line
Tragic sentiment
‘Outsider’ perspective
Unrhymed, ‘natural’ speech
At least one ‘curve-ball’ image which strikes the reader with it’s strangeness
Mid-size length (35-40 lines) with regular stanzas or no stanzas
Topics may include: environmental crisis, personal identity, family trauma
To give the imitators credit, most prize-winners will probably have at least some of these. So, if you do want to write a competition poem, there’s your formula. But, a trend can’t go on forever. If you write poems which feature any of the above, there’s nothing wrong with that. But, bear in mind that times change and it’s worth branching out into some different styles, themes and formats in order to make your poem stand out from the pack.
So, my tip is: experiment, do things differently, show me what you’ve got.
Cat Woodward
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