Lulu Poetry Contest Official Rules

Eligibility: The contest is open to all poets, published or not, and regardless of experience. Current and former employees of Lulu Poetry or their relatives are not eligible for contest prizes. All poems must be 24 lines or fewer. Poems must be original and submitted by the copyright owner. There will be a 24-hour turnaround time before poems are available for rating in the contest as all poems are subject to editorial and copyright check to determine compliance with Lulu Poetry Member Agreement. All users are bound by the site Terms of Use.

You may enter the contest as many times as you like. Each poem will only be eligible to win the daily and monthly contests once per year. Poets who enter multiple poems in the contest can win prizes more than once.

Fees: There are no entry fees, no subsidy payments and no purchases of any kind required to enter and win the contest.

Decisions: Winners are selected by a panel of judges from among the top 10% of poems with the highest daily, monthly and yearly ratings by the community. Judges are members of Lulu Poetry's Selection Committee. Entries are judged on the basis of originality, creative imagination, characterization, artistic quality and adherence to the line limits. In the event of a tie, the panel will determine the winner.

Rights: All poems remain the property of the poet. By submitting a poem for this contest, the poet agrees to have his work posted on the website. Lulu Poetry also reserves the right to remove a poem from the contest for any reason.

Notification: All contest prizewinners will be notified by email by 5:00 p.m. ET each Friday as well as being posted to the Lulu Poetry blog. Once contest prize winners are notified of winning, they are required to respond to their notification email to provide PayPal information within 30 days or prize is automatically forfeited.

Prizes: One prize of $25 will be awarded each day, one prize of $250 will be awarded each month and one prize of $5000 will be awarded annually. In the event of a tie, the winner will be determined by the panel. All winners will have their names displayed on the poetry.com site.

Prize payments will be made by the 15th of the month following the month you win. (For example, if you win on January 2, you will be awarded your prize by February 15.) Prize payments will only be paid in US dollars through PayPal.

Prize Requirements:

1099 or W8BEN may be required (1099 required for payments of $600 or more, W8BEN for international winners).

Once contestant winners are notified of their winnings, they are required to reply to the notification email with appropriate information to be paid out. If a contest winner does not provide the necessary information within 30 days of notification, then they will have automatically forfeited their prize.

Winners must provide their first and last name, mailing address, and PayPal account email to Lulu Poetry in order to receive their prize.

For more information contact: help@poetry.com

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