How to Win a Poetry Competition: announcing the winner of the YouAreHOPE contest

A week ago I posted a contest challenging people to write a poem of any type about @sircork's new charitable initiative, YouAreHOPE, which you can follow here: @youarehope. Over this last week, I received nine really great and inspired entries. And in trying to figure out how to judge such a slippery, subjective thing as a poetry contest, I decided that whatever information I put together might help anyone coming at it from the other side: trying to win a poetry contest. My ambitious promise to any poet following the advice below is that you'll have a very good shot in whatever poetry competition you find yourself.

So what makes a winning poem? What makes poetry great rather than just good? Before answering that for myself, I wanted to revisit what others had to say:

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“What is a good poem? A good poem is a slip-of-a-thing that celebrates language.” - Nikki Grimes

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“The job of the poet is to create a picture in the mind and an emotion in the heart. Every single word counts. The wrong choice–a word with the wrong connotation or the wrong number of syllables or an unlovely combination of consonant sounds–spoils all.” - Maeve Maddox

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“How does one avoid a string of platitudes, truisms and cliches? That's the trick of it, isn't it? That's the razor that separates 'good' poets from 'great' poets.” - NewPoetsPress

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“Be a painter in words.” - Peg Lauber

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In light of this varied advice, I decided to focus on four things in judging this contest: language manipulation, concrete imagery, cliche avoidance, and cohesion.

So the first thing I looked for in the nine entries was a clever manipulation of language. I don't care what form those manipulations take, whether rhyme or alliteration or assonance or meter ... there are many literary devices to choose from. I'm happy to say that I found some great examples of language manipulation in each entry:

“In a spark, I descend...” beautiful alliteration from @raj808

“Seasons change, but Your love remains” nice assonance from @twotripleow

[palindrome structure] from @markjason

“Decline to be ground down / by the gears of the miserly machine” a double device of assonance and alliteration by @sunravelme

“@sircork has an idea with an incredible scope / He’s knitting a community called @youarehope” relevant rhyme (to the contest theme) of @xyzashu

“In wells of anguish and despair, lower a rope” the haunting repetition of @csbegu

“We won’t be done under. / We’ll never surrender!” playful near rhyme from @lymmerik (plus great rhyming and assonance throughout)

“If Love is the part of your life” crisp alliteration from @rayne122

“They need food and maybe seeds, / and clean water to succeed” complex AABAAB rhyme scheme of @jonknight

However, in writing a poem about an organization named YouAreHOPE, the first hurdle any poet must clear is avoiding platitude. That's because hope, itself, is a platitude. But what exactly does that mean?

“Platitudes are trite statements that simplify rather than explore complicated subjects. If life could be boiled down to our numerous platitudes, it would be a lot easier to live. In reality, though, life is complicated and difficult at times, and platitudes lack the depth and complexity to truly help or provide wisdom.” - LiteraryTerms.net

To address this abstract and over-sentimentalized concept, a poet needs to pull “hope” into the realm of the concrete. And while I enjoyed all the poems submitted, the first ones to be denied an upgrade from good to great were those containing platitudes that oversimplified the idea of “hope.”

[Not to mention the abstract idea of “greed,” which also showed up quite a bit in the entries.]

Concrete imagery is needed to illustrate the abstract ideas of hope or greed in a poem. This doesn't mean just visual images; poetic imagery is anything that appeals to the physical senses and fleshes out, characterizes abstract platitudes. Poetry should make the abstract idea of “hope” real, something tangible, something you can see, hear, or feel with your fingers. What's my definition of imagery? If I read something and I can see it, hear it, taste, smell it, or feel it.

And I did find concrete imagery in some entries:

“But the butt of their joke, / It got stuck in their throat.” - @lymmerik

“Sometimes life’s meaning is a bar of soap” - @csbegu

“I am the smoke that gathers in angry breath” - @raj808

“the pounding shores of selfishness” - @sunravelme

“Will you raid your cookie jar?” - @jonknight

But one thing that often crept up, even in these examples of the abstract made tangible, was the spectre of dreaded cliché. One by one, I eliminated submissions that included cliché (though I'm pretty sure @sunravelme wrote hers on purpose, just to mess with me).

I was left with a few poems that I now looked at critically from the perspective of cohesion. A poem isn't a story and isn't required to include all three parts of a story arc. But it should give you a sense that it's whole and complete. Regarding each remaining entry, I asked myself several questions. Was each line a necessary part of the poem's greater whole? Did its structure play itself out? Did the images relate to one another, even if contrasting? Did the ending stray awkwardly from the beginning? Did each poem follow through on its promise?

And after all that, one poem stood out, in all four of these areas:

• manipulating language
• avoiding cliché and platitude
• presenting “hope” in tangible imagery
• creating a unified whole
  
  

The Winner:

With Stars Aligned in Wretched Ways by @csbegu

With stars aligned in wretched ways, it’s hard to cope;
A glass of water can dry a toddler’s tears;
In wells of anguish and despair, lower a rope.

A fire in cool caverns you can light, and stoke;
The silence after shivers stop, it’s all the vagrant hears;
With stars aligned in wretched ways, it’s hard to cope.

Sometimes life’s meaning is a bar of soap;
A healthy infant’s cry will soothe her mother’s ears;
In wells of anguish and despair, lower a rope.

There is a dignity in humble fates, willing to hope;
Your deeds could put away a father’s fears;
With stars aligned in wretched ways, it’s hard to cope.

A shelter carved into a hillside slope
giggles with smiles behind the muddy smears;
With stars aligned in wretched ways, it’s hard to cope;
In wells of anguish and despair, lower a rope.

I so appreciate the YouAreHOPE organization being characterized by this tangible and beautifully relevant image of lowering a rope into a well. The needs are deftly described as shivering silence, a carved shelter, a bar of soap. And the title's alliteration of “wretched ways” just blows me away!

He will receive 30 SBD, with 10 provided by @geke, 10 provided by @sircork, and 10 provided by @authorofthings. Great job, @csbegu, and thank you for capturing so well the essence of YouAreHOPE!

Before I leave you, though, I'd like to thank everyone who entered! It was an honor to read each of your submitted poems.