$5,350 Tom Howard Poetry Contest 

This site provides information for the $5,350 Tom Howard Poetry Contest only. 

 If you seek information on the $5,550 Tom Howard Short Story, Essay and Prose Contest, which will open for entries on July 15, 2009:

Please use this link: Prose Contest 

The Tom Howard Poetry Contest 

for Poetry and Verse

in all styles

& genres

1. Here is the fourth and latest Anthology of Prize-winning Poems from both the Tom Howard Poetry Contest and the Margaret Reid Prize for Traditional Verse. Over 100 fascinating, award-winning poems (showcasing over 50 major prize-winners, including 19 of the 21 major winners from the 2007 Margaret Reid Prize and 29 of the 30 major winners from the 2006 Tom Howard Poetry Contest). 60 superb photographs. 194 large-format pages. Only 16.50 for a beautiful print edition. Currently, however, this book is "on special" at Amazon and other bookstores for only $9.95. This promotion may end soon, so order now from the link below before the price reverts to $16.50 (and that itself is a bargain price for a book of this superlative quality). Also again available is our acclaimed second anthology of winning poems, TRAVELING. 

TRAVELING contains 58 winning and commended poems from the 2nd Tom Howard Poetry Contest, including "The Dark Room" by Elaine Winer (First Prize), "Mason City Ladies' Sewing Circle" by Mary Ann Wehler (Second Prize), and "de profundis" by Catherine De Laney (Third Prize). Ten bonus poems include "Weather Report" by Guy Kettlehack (First Prize in the Margaret Reid Contest for Traditional Verse); plus three poems by Chief Judge, John Howard Reid; plus six classic "best poems of all time", including the COMPLETE "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" (not the abbreviated version usually published in anthologies) by Thomas Gray, "The Miner" by James Russell Lowell, "The Jackdaw of Rheims" (one of the most delightful humorous poems ever written) by Richard Harris Barham, and the poignant "Jenny" by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. A striking example of William Wordsworth's verse at its best and its worst, is provided by his "Rob Roy's Grave". In short, TRAVELING is a must-read anthology for intending contestants. You can, of course, preview this anthology free of charge. Please use this link: Lulu Books 

Absolute-must reading for all competition contestants! A new edition of my famous handbook "WRITE WAYS TO WIN WRITING CONTESTS: How to Join the Winners' Circle for Short Story Awards, Poetry Prizes, etc." is now available direct from Lulu at http://www.lulu.com/filmindex 

Price is $12.50. Buy from Amazon, Barnes and Noble and other bookstores. What's $12.50 compared to increasing your chances of carrying off a First Prize of $2,000 in cash? (If you prefer to buy the original edition, please click the link below):

 

Our very first anthology of winning entries from the Tom Howard Poetry Contest has just been re-published. A slim book of 80 pages, but it contains some great poems!

The 7th annual Tom Howard Poetry Contest is now open. A total of $5,350 will be awarded in prize-money for all styles and genres of poetry and verse as follows: 

First Prize: $2,000. Second: $1,000. Third: $500. Fourth: $250. Plus five High Distinction Awards of $200 each. Plus six Highly Commended Awards of $100 each. Fifteen cash awards in all, including a First Prize of $2,000.

Grand total: $5,350.

In short, this Contest is a Premier Literary Competition for Original Creative Writing in Poetry or Verse in any Style and on any Theme. 

US$5,350 in Cash Prizes, plus online publication for the top fifteen winners. Poets will also be offered the opportunity to have their winning entries published in traditional print form, at no cost to them whatever, in an anthology similar to SAILING IN THE MIST OF TIME, as featured above. Poets will all be completely free to either accept or decline this offer of traditional print publication.  

Closing date: September 30, 2009

Entries may be submitted online at http://winningwriters.com/contests/tompoetry/tp_guidelines.php

Visit the above site for email, PayPal and snail mail options. 

Entry forms are not required for this Contest, however, by entering you agree to abide by the judge's decisions, and that those decisions are final. If you win a cash prize you agree to allow John H. Reid and Winning Writers to publish your poem online.

Entry fees are US$7 for every 25 lines (or part thereof).

There is no maximum limit on the number of lines (or number of entries) you may submit. There are no restrictions on subject matter and, unlike many other contests, humorous poems and comic verses are most welcome. In fact, you will find some excellent, winning examples of comic poems in our printed anthologies such as SAILING IN THE MIST OF TIME and TRAVELING.

TO REPEAT, ALL TYPES AND GENRES OF POETRY ARE ACCEPTED

NO RESTRICTIONS ON PREVIOUS PUBLICATION

PRIZE-WINNERS FROM OTHER CONTESTS WELCOME

(SO LONG AS YOU HAVE RETAINED ONLINE PUBLISHING RIGHTS)

Please note that the entry fee of US$7 per 25 lines is calculated on the total number of lines. (Headings and spaces are not counted). If you submit two short poems, one of ten lines and one of 14 lines, the total fee is US$7. If, however, you submit two sonnets (14 lines each), the fee is US$14. If you submit a long poem between 176 and 200 lines, the fee is US$56. 

 If you have any questions, please email johnreid at mail.qango.com

The prizes are pegged in U.S. dollars. Prizes will be paid in other currencies (if required) at equivalent rates of exchange. 

The chief judge of all entries in the Contest is John H. Reid. Associate judge is Professor D.C. Konrad.

Tom Howard Poetry Contest

Complete Results of 2008 Contest

First Prize, $2,000: Dawn Raymond (USA), Ghosts

Second Prize, $1,000: Harry Gilleland, Jr (USA), The Old Salty Poems

Third Prize, $500: Joseph Gorman (USA), Anxiety Disorder

Fourth Prize, $250: Wolstan Brown (USA), Do not be kind to robots that love humans

Five High Distinction Awards of $200 each (in merit order):

Harry Gilleland, Jr (USA), The Assembled Waiters

Joanne Lau (Hong Kong), Hickory Dickory Dock

Meryl Raw (South Africa), Return to Mount Ayliff�s Childhood Home

Vicky Gouldthorp (USA), The Attic

Tamar Diana Wilson (Mexico), From L.A. to New York

Six Highly Commended Awards of $100 each (in random order):

Martin Steele, (USA), Omaha. Day one. The Day � 6 June 

Louis Giron (USA), Ars anti-poetica Halloween candy 

Helen Bar-Lev (Israel), True Roots 

Dixon Hearne (USA), Touchstones

Phyllis Jean Green (USA), Mirrors not for Them

Tom Berman (Israel), Nightfall

Finalists for Cash Awards (in random order):

Helen Bar-Lev: Crows in the Rain, Beachcombers, Waking, The Convoy, Second Fiddle, Venus, Waiting at a Traffic Light, Serving tg the Guests Watermelon; Joseph Gorman: Matthew 10:16; Joanne Lau: Spiral, Grab Not the Red, Traces, Metabolism of Time, A Toddler Easily Falls, Snow Globe, Life in a Box, The Playwright, I Do Not Remember, Water Wanted; Johnmichael Simon: Goodbye Granny Robinson, Apartment Building on Intersection Partly in Darkness, Sabbatical, God Is Great, Synchronicity or Design, For Old Time�s Sake; Phyllis Jean Green: Be, Look How Tall You Are!, Your lap Your Chinese Checkers, Blink of an Eye, Vintage Yarn, Still Afloat, Call Me a Deer Devil, Judge not Judge-?; Hans Jorg Stahlschmidt: Ganges, Meeting the Buddha near Bangalore, Liberian soldier boy, Alone in the house; Tom Berman: Waiting, Aging with the Tiles, The Tau Neutrino; Berwyn Moore: After the Light; Donna Arlynn Frisinger: Bullets for a Hometown Hero; Frank Salvideo: His Mirror, What Sappho Said, Magnets, Scheduling; Laura Hilton-Margraf: Fire in the Snow, Vanishing Point, Thou, Coyote, One Night Removed; Carmine Dandrea: Easter 1951; Sooja Jones: Nickel and Dime; Charmaine Cadeau: Hauntings; Fred Kruger: Facing Alzheimers � No Going Back; Art Schwartz: Lola High Upon My Shoulders;  Frank McDonald: Of Seas and Galleons.

Commended (in random order):

Harry Gilleland, Jr, Brotherly Love; Shannon M. Greer, Daisies; Michaela Nomis, Home; Meryl Raw, Foundations; Joseph Gorman, That Thing That; Holly Bilski, Elephants;

Raymond Southall, Bric-a-Brac; Aliene Pylant, Refuse; Virginia Muller, The Ocean;

Vivien K. Harris, Denim Jacket Pantoum; Lori Pike, The Bench; Ruth Hill, Autumn; Ruth Hill, Colors in the Far North; Alicia Patti, Family Reunion; Michael Casey, Riverrun; Larry Long, Whispers of Death; Benton Keith, Midnight on the Lake; 

Benton Keith, A Darker Shade of Day; Russell Mortimer, The Trench of Dread; Karen Gifford, There�s one�; Anne Robey, Today Was a Good Day; Bernard Mann, We Stumbled to the Singing Sea.

Primary Short List (random order):

Jillian James, On the road to Razorback; Erna Bennett, Three thousand 744; Hari Prasad Sahu, The Splendid Web; Neil Kaufman, Crux; David Dunstan, On opening the annual Waiyungari�; Rhoda Greenstone, Tigers; Joanne M. Uppendahl, The Way She Wakens;

Lola Shoneyin, For Kiitan; Don Kimball: Prayer for My Father; Stella Wittstock, The Poet; Barbara Orlowska-Westwood, Lazarus; Raymond Southall, The End of the Affair; Virginia Muller, Confined; Benton Keith: Autumn Night in Cowan; Virginia Muller, Grandfather Clock;  Michael Casey, Just Marbles; Walter Skold, Ye Olde First Perish

Peter Moltoni, I Long for Hidden Outback Places; Paul Cummins, A Wife�s Question; Antonia Clark, Famous Last Words; Shannon M. Greer, Wet Orchid; Shannon M. Greer, January Thaw; Betty Bleen, A Different Mourning; Becky Alexander, Myth-Morphosis; Joanne Mills, Walyunga; Trish Shields, BC Dreamer; Joseph Gorman, White Petals; Persephone Vandergrift, My Photographic Memory; Barbara Yost, On losing a job; Corinne Cheatham, Heavenly Perfection; Rosemary Bruffett, What Do You See?

Diane Bubb, In Defense of Doggerel; Sherry Willis, Fallen Leaves; David J. Delaney, Cradle Mountain; Daniel Lee, Beauty; Lori Westerbuhr, Origins; Stephanie Varholak, Initiation; Stephanie Varholak, Holstered at the Hip; George Lotter, Darkness Tells Me; John Foster, The Nonet; Scott Harmon, Bashathaloo sighed�; Scott Harmon, Look, don�t judge me�; Gene Tanta, History has a few words for you; Maggie Lawlor, A glimpse of your soul; Anne Robey, What is real?; Sam Smith, Conjure Lover; Caryn Hull, Spring Mistress; Caryn Hull, The Drowning Soul; Mary Maier, Whidby Island Girl; Joseph Gorman, the road; Stumbling; Drip, Drip, Drip; Leland James, Those Little Garnishes at the Caf� Surreal; Leland James, North Lake; Leland James, The Careful Sparrow; Kathe Palka, El Capitan by Full Moon; Christine Goodman, Homeless;

Lisa Gilley, The Bat Poet�s Lament; Jo Carolyn Beebe, Hopewell Cemetery; Niki Nymark, The Saturn Is Almost Shot; Sharon Carlson, Poetry� Lost; Peter Moltoni, Here at the Fountainside; Jerry Eidenier, In the Absence of Horses; Miranda Moti, Invisible butterflies; Theresa Cocolin, Transformation; Bonnie Leer, Morning Music; Deanna Matzanke, Un-Disney; Paul Cummins, The Ferry from Macinaw to Blaney Park; Liz Davies, To Maintain Loft; Karen Garrison, Big Back Seat; Jessica LaFortune, Through North Pacific Woods I Wander; Allan Gatt, A New Coat of Paint; Jennifer Paggliaro, "417"; Marcia Adkins, Indian Summer; Wayne Lee, In the Basement of the New Yorker Hotel; Harry E. Gilleland, Jr., Cindy Jo; Harry E. Gilleland, Jr., And So the Zoo Lion Paces� ; Jeff Kamin, Walking along the Soccer Field; Cassandra Crull, Once Upon a Time; Tracy Decker, Moment; Sherri Peterson, Dragonflies; Virginia Muller, Irish Lass; Debra Gundy, Watercolor Lighthouse; Kate Fridkis, Storm; Sherry Willis, Fallen Leaves; Edward G. Pizzella, Professional Pride; Eileen Obser, Driving Under the Influence; Jeffrey P. Squire, The Gardener�s Reflection of Change; Vivien Cook, Firestorm; Petr V. Dugan, The Gray Pilgrim; Syd Knowlton, Fidelity; Carolyn Moore, The Selkie Discovers the Information Age; John Davis Pilkey, Fire Street; John Davis Pilkey, Old Mortality; Terence R. Seward, Trespassers; R.E.L. Chamberlin, Hard Scrabble; Dean Hooper, Reprise; Ronald K. Olson, His Heart Has Ears.