Write Out Loud Outstanding Poem

For some time now, there has been dissatisfaction at how the POM is chosen.  I, like many others, do enjoy being introduced to poets and styles of poetry I wouldn’t otherwise have come across.  POM fulfils this need and usually places on our homepage a poem of unquestionable quality that may well attract newcomers to the site. However, as a reward or incentive to existing site members, I feel POM falls short, despite the best intentions of all concerned. I am therefore proposing to set up a more casual competition to run side by side with POM, where site members will vote on blogs posted in a particular period.  This will be called the WOLOP award ��" Write Out Loud Outstanding Poem.

RULES

      1    Every WOL member gets one vote to be sent to me by email     

            farmoorgirl@yahoo.co.uk - I may split people alphabetically and insert

            another email address, if the award takes off.  Votes to be received by 7^th of

            each month for the previous month.

2        The competition will be open only to blogs during one month 1^st-31^st.  I will not be accepting profile poems since they are covered by POM. We are now looking at blogs from 1^st September ��" 30^th September (40 already), so get reading.  Please wait until the end of the month before voting - otherwise you are choosing not to read or closing your mind to other work.

3        There is no financial reward ��" just the kudos of knowing your work was appreciated by the majority of your fellow poets.

4        I will not be inviting people to savage the chosen poem ��" a sport which happens often with POM.  If the chosen poet chooses to receive critical feedback, he or she must post it somewhere else for that criticism ��" maybe on a discussion thread.  Of course if Darren Thomas wins I will allow you to all jump up and down on it.

5        Please don’t vote for me ��" I am gallantly excluding myself ��" and don’t vote for yourselves, even if your name’s Steve Black.

6        I will post the winning poem in the blog section, together with commentary as close to the 7^th of each month as possible.

I am not sure how successful this award will be.  I will run the competition for a couple of months.  If it isn’t needed, wanted or enjoyed by site members, I will wind it up.

I hope we will all continue to enjoy POM ��" there are some very worthy poems and poets on there. If anyone is confused by just why I am bothering to do this they may wish to read the discussion thread on POM ��" though it is a very long one.