THIS HAPPENED TO ME | SATIRE | POETRY CONTEST | GREECE

I Think Congratulations Are in Order — My Poem Prevailed in a Greek Poetry Contest!

But I don’t yet know which of my three poems prevailed

Author Nikolaos Skordilis (on the right) battling it out in a Greek poetry contest. Attributed to Barthélemy d’Eyck, Public domain.

A couple of months ago yours truly sent three Greek poems to a poetry contest. The contest was set up by a modest Greek publisher along with some poetry clubs.

The prize for the winners was not monetary, of course, but a paper prize awarded in something called Second Poetry Night. There the winning poems would be presented and perhaps recited by actors.

Apart from each of us getting a standing or sitting ovation, depending on the hour, told how eloquent our Greek is, or get glowing remarks about the visuals or music of our verses, our poems would also be printed in a poetry anthology.

I call this publicity publishing. Unlike vanity publishing you do not pay to get published, but you do not get a cent either. But we’d all get a single copy of the anthology for free. Fantastic, right?

The idea is supposedly to ‘get your name around’ so that larger and/or more legit publishers who pay royalties notice you. Along with the general public. Which should(?) work in theory but rarely does in practice — I…