the contest

I entered a World Poetry Movement contest, received a letter stating my poem had been chosen to be published in their next anthology, and was thrilled. I had my doubts when they asked me to pay for the book and thought it was strange that they weren't sending me a copy for free. My husband was so proud of me and knew how excited I was and how much this meant to me, so he bought a copy for us.

I soon found another writer on Twitter who had also entered the contest and had also received a letter that he would be published. He sent me a link to an article about writing contests to watch out for, and this contest was one of them. Writing contests should not require the entrant to purchase anything. I still felt okay because I had pretty much figured out on my own that something wasn't quite right, thus the reason I used Twitter to seek out anyone else who had also entered this contest. 

The book just came in the mail on Monday, and it looks even better than I thought it would. I will post a picture of the cover as soon as I can--I really like it. The way I feel about this whole experience is actually positive. I was surprised and touched by how supportive and excited my husband was even when I shared my doubts about this being a true contest. He didn't care; he still wanted the book.

Seeing my poem printed in a book with an entire page dedicated to my work has given me twice the amount of motivation to keep going, to keep working as hard as I can to reach my goal of becoming an author. This is a victory for me, a small one, but a victory nonetheless. I am proud of this accomplishment. I wrote this poem over ten years ago, and I still find it one of my best pieces to this day.

I would like to share my poem with all of you, and I will tomorrow!

Weigh in Wednesday ~ Poetry vs. Prose

This is a new weekly meme hosted by Lauren from Epilogue Review. Each week there will be a something vs. something topic for you to post your thoughts about. Make sure to visit Lauren at her blog, Epilogue Review, and she has a link if you'd like to use her picture (shown above) as well as the blog hop code. Comments below with your thoughts are always appreciated! :)

The topic this week: Poetry vs. Prose

OK, so since I'm a total nerd :D, I decided to look up the words "poetry" and "prose" on the Merriam-Webster dictionary app on my iPod to help kick start my thoughts. I was really surprised to see a definition for "prose poem." (It's been a really long time since I've been in an actual English class.) In case, like me, you haven't heard of this or remember what it is, I've got you covered! 

prose poem = a composition in prose that has some of the qualities of a poem

Does anyone have any examples of a prose poem? I'd like to check them out. :)



Poetry tends to intimidate me unless I'm the one writing it. Sometimes I feel like I'm missing what the writer is communicating to me and find myself floundering around trying to grasp the poem's meaning, although, in my opinion, it's a form of writing that can be open to interpretation. Maybe that's what is hard for me to grasp.

The more I thought about poetry in writing this post, the more I thought about my favorite songs. There are so many songs that have perfectly described emotions I've felt that I didn't have the words myself at the time to express them. There's something really beautiful about well written lyrics, and I really like to read the lyrics to an entire album I love in one sitting.

I do read much more prose than poetry though. It seems there is so much more prose readily available out there than poetry. When I get emails from Goodreads, Barnes & Noble, Amazon, etc. giving out information on new releases, I rarely see any new poetry books coming out. There is so much writing in prose that is just as beautiful as poetry to me. Ninety-five percent of my favorite pieces of writing are in prose. Does it seem to you that there is more prose out there than poetry?

Since I read more prose and am more comfortable reading this form of writing, then I'm going to go with prose. :)

What are your thoughts? Is it prose or poetry for you?