Last Friday, I wrote about Rick Lupert”s Poetry Superhighway, where Rick Lupert has been featuring some of the best poets in the world since 1997. At the time, I told you about his Great Poetry Exchange, and the Great E-book Free For All. I didn”t mention the annual Poetry Superhighway Poetry Contest, which has been running since 1998 for one reason and one reason only – the deadlines listed in the contest rules were for October 2005. I dropped a quick line to Rick, who responded immediately that it was definitely a typo and updated his page with the correction. Which makes me very happy, because of all the poetry contests I see – and I do see a lot – this is one of my favorites.
What makes it so great? Everyone – every single poet who enters – gets a prize. The top three poets split the entry fees (minus the costs of mailing out the additional prizes) among them. The entry fee is $1 per poem, and you can pay it via Paypal (You can also mail it to Rick at the address provided in the rules.). The additional prizes are furnished by the contest sponsors – and anyone can sponsor the Superhighway poetry contest by supplying an additional prize. The prizes range from copies of chapbooks to two free admissions and a beer apiece for two people at the Bowery Poetry Club. That makes it not only a cool thing to do – give everybody a prize – it furthers Rick”s mission to spread poetry and get poets reading other poets. If you only enter one poetry contest in your life, this is the one you should enter – the odds are with you and the entry fee is unbeatable.
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