| The Scam of the International Library of Poetry (aka poetry.com) I would like to warn all of you people out there to be very careful when entering a poetry contest. Poetry.com has a contest where you can win a $1,000 prize and the contest is free. It's harmless to enter. Well, I did. Today I received a letter from poetry.com. They said they would like to publish my poem in a book. Now, my poem didn't win the $1,000 grand prize or one of the 24 silver medals or one of the 79 bronze medals. So I was suspicious. But I didn't want to believe it a scam. I mean, how many teenage girls get their poems published out of the millions of submissions? But it did sound kind of suspicious. So, with the advice of my mom and my cuz Pewter Fox, I looked into it. They gave me a list of all the so-called books they had published so I did a search for all of them. I came up with nothing. But in my search I came up with several sites that said which poetry contests were scams. That's when I realized it was. I mean, there's no submission fee so it's too good to be true. BUT they say you can buy the book for $50. What poetry book would cost $50?! And by amateurs too! In my searches I found out several things. No offense to the writer, but one poem called a cat has fleas was published! Another thing, even though it clearly states that the books can be found at all major retail book stores, it can't. It's all to good to be true. You know why? Because it's not! So to you all, I would be wary of all poetry contests. Check your sources first. I'm glad I did before I spent $50 for a book no one but the authors of the poems will read. |