Q & A Time with the Poet

Hello, my fellow writers and poets! I am going to start posting questions and answers about writing on my site. Today's questions come from C.M., a young man who e-mailed me with questions about getting poetry published. His basic questions were these:

QUESTIONS 

1. How do I find competitions and venues for publishing my poems that aren't scams?

2. How do I improve my poems enough so that I will be ready for entering these competitions? 

He mentioned that he had entered a contest through the National Library of Poets, but then later discovered that the competition was a scam. 

ANSWERS:

       Thanks for your message. I'm so sorry about your bad experiences with the National Library and other contests. Yes, you definitely have talent and potential as a writer! If you submit to the magazine Poets & Writers, or go online to their website at pw.org, you will find a list of real, vetted competitions to enter each month. Here is the list for this month: pw.org/content/deadlines. All of these competitions are legitimate, so you won't have to worry about scams. 
     
       The best way to improve your poems is to read as much contemporary poetry as you can and revise, revise, revise! Keep your audience in mind. Use specific language. In poetry, the nouns/objects carry the weight. Use a thesaurus and a synonym dictionary to be sure you are using exactly the right words. 
 
       Most Christian publishers don't publish poetry, but there are a few Christian poetry journals that you can submit your work to:
 
              -IMAGE
              -Relief
              -Rock & Sling
              -Toward the Light
 
        Most people who publish poems today, including myself, publish in the contemporary poetry (secular) market. Those poems typically have more of an outward focus rather than an inward focus. For some idea of what I mean, stop by a Barnes & Noble or other bookstore and pick up a bunch of their newest poetry and literary journals and read through them for a couple of hours. The Paris Review, Missouri Review, and others should give you an idea of what kind of poems are being selected. Also, you should purchase the following books online; they will really revolutionize your writing.
 
             -The Triggering Town by Richard Hugo
             -The Poetry Home Repair Manual by Ted Kooser
             -Several collections of poetry by Billy Collins
 
        Also, check out this website and you will be able to read many contemporary poems there: poets.org. Discover which poets you like and then figure out why you like them. What elements do they use that you might be able to focus on more in your own poems?
 
       Poets & Writers Magazine also includes lists of the winners of all of the major poetry contests. Reading the poems of the winners, printing them out and looking over them and seeing what they did and how they used language, will be one of your best tools for writing winning poetry!
 
       Also, if cost is a factor, you may want to focus for now on writing poems and submitting them to journals (which is free). After you work on your poems for a while, then you can start entering competitions. Definitely stick with it! Blessings!
Marla