Announcing the Winners of our Valentine's Day Poetry Competition

Quote by Will_greybeard
Congratulations to the winners and runners up.
I have taken the results of this competition as an indication that my belief that I could write reasonable poetry as a delusion, so I have removed all my poems from public view. I am not sure whether this is because they are technically flawed, or because they are just rubbish. I will publish mo more here.

I'm so sorry that's how you feel. I actually hate competitions, but I enter sometimes, because it amuses me. I am under no illusions that I am the sort of writer who would win such things. Yes, I know some big words, and believe in punctuation. But when I enter a competition, I am simply sticking my fingers up at a personal challenge to my own sad skills. I don't see it as a challenge for my skills against another's even though that's what competitions are supposed to be.

And here's the kicker: it amuses me, because what I enter (in my own mind) is always a piece I write tongue-in-cheek. Sometimes, my poor readers like my daft offerings, and sometimes they don't. And that's okay. I know I can't win, because I'm not what competition winners are about. I'll never truly be in their erotic writer gold prize winning ranks by way of being... well, who I am. But I could be. Maybe. If I practice, and hone, and use failure to fuel my desire to be a good writer, maybe one day I will be a listed winner.

But as it stands, I am a winner because I managed to write a piece, and have it published. I am a champion because something I penned resonated with a small handful of kind readers. Stuff anything else, I'm brilliant because I'm here. I find healing and/or amusement when my health allows me to write. Every piece that I write, whether it is better or worse than my last, and decidedly crapper than Lush winners, is a prize to myself for the difficulty it took to produce it.

Please, use the tumult and storm of passion you feel now to produce more pieces. One day, perhaps what the judges are looking for in a particular competition will be encapsulated in something you produced from the bowels of rage, or the weeping of rejection. You won't know unless you continue on this writer's journey. Never mind other contestants and what they produce - splay your heart and soul across the screen because you can; because you wish to; because you are a winner; because you are a champion.



Well done, not only to the prize winners, but every winner who ever manages to post, whether noted or not.

Quote by Shylass



Please, use the tumult and storm of passion you feel now to produce more pieces. One day, perhaps what the judges are looking for in a particular competition will be encapsulated in something you produced from the bowels of rage, or the weeping of rejection. You won't know unless you continue on this writer's journey. Never mind other contestants and what they produce - splay your heart and soul across the screen because you can; because you wish to; because you are a winner; because you are a champion.



Well done, not only to the prize winners, but every winner who ever manages to post, whether noted or not.

Quote by Will_greybeard
Congratulations to the winners and runners up.
I have taken the results of this competition as an indication that my belief that I could write reasonable poetry as a delusion, so I have removed all my poems from public view. I am not sure whether this is because they are technically flawed, or because they are just rubbish. I will publish mo more here.