Getting a poem heard beyond the room
Ways a poem reaches other people, including a young writers contest
Submitting a poem means sending finished work to an editor, a judge or a programmer who decides what gets published, and the safest first version of it for a writer under eighteen is a free young writers contest run by an organisation that names its judges in advance.
A poem written in a workshop leaves that room by five routes: a magazine, an anthology, a competition, a page or a recording put online, and a stage that somebody else programmes. Each route is decided by a different person, wants the poem in a different shape, and asks for a different slice of what the writer owns. One thing holds across all five of them. The words belong to the person who wrote them, at any age, until that person signs them away in writing.
The five routes a poem takes out of the room
The five routes differ in who decides, what they cost and what the writer hands over, and those three differences matter more than which route sounds most impressive. Spoken word poetry is written to be said out loud, so two of the five end in a voice rather than on a page, and a young writer who chases only print is ignoring half of what the work is for.
| Route | Who decides | What it costs the writer | What the writer hands over |
|---|---|---|---|
| A magazine | An editor, reading unsolicited work in a stated window | Nothing, at any magazine worth sending to | Permission to publish it once, usually the first time |
| An anthology | An editor commissioning or selecting for a theme | Nothing, in an edited anthology | Permission to print it in that book |
| A competition | A judge, named in advance in a legitimate contest | Nothing for schemes aimed at under eighteens | Permission to print the winning poems |
| A page or a recording online | The writer, and after that the platform | Nothing in money, something in first rights | A broad licence to host, copy and show it |
| A stage or a commission | A programmer, a host or a teacher | Nothing, and sometimes a fee is paid to the writer | Permission to perform, film or record it |
Read that table across rather than down. Submitting a poem takes the first row apart in detail, from the file an editor wants to the meaning of a rejection, and Anthologies takes the second, including the difference between a book somebody edits and a book that prints everyone who pays. The rows overlap on purpose, because a poem posted on a phone at eleven at night has quietly used up the same right a magazine will ask for six months later.
What a young writer already owns
A young writer owns the copyright in a poem from the moment it is written down or recorded, and nothing has to be applied for, registered or paid. Copyright in the United Kingdom arises automatically under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, which applies in England and Wales, in Scotland and in Northern Ireland alike, and the Intellectual Property Office, the government body that publishes the guidance, operates no register of copyright works because there is none to operate. There is no minimum age anywhere in it. A poem written at fourteen is owned by a fourteen year old, and it stays that way for the writer's lifetime and seventy years after the end of the year of their death.
Two further rights sit alongside the copyright. Moral rights, in the same 1988 Act, include the right to be identified as the author, which has to be asserted in writing, and the right to object to derogatory treatment of the work. Performers' rights, in Part Two of that Act, cover the saying of the poem rather than the poem itself, which is why a recording of a performance needs the performer's agreement as well as the writer's.
Publication transfers none of this. What a publisher actually asks for is one of three things, and the difference between them is the whole of the negotiation:
- A licence to publish once: permission to print or post the poem, after which the writer can place it anywhere that accepts previously published work.
- An exclusive licence for a period: the same permission, with a promise not to let anyone else publish it for a stated number of months.
- An assignment: the copyright itself, handed over, which can only be done in writing and signed, and which a young writer has no reason to agree to for a single poem.
What a young writers contest asks for
A young writers contest asks for the poem, the writer's age, a way to reach them with the result, and nothing more. The clearest British example is the Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award, run by The Poetry Society for writers aged eleven to seventeen, free to enter, judged by poets named before the closing date, with the winning poems printed in an anthology. Its Young Poets Network sets writing challenges on the same terms, schools and libraries run smaller versions all year, and in Wales the Urdd Eisteddfod has held competitions for young people, many of them in Welsh, for generations.
Six things make a contest safe to enter, and every one of them can be checked before a poem is sent:
- No entry fee, or a modest one that is stated on the same page as the rules.
- A named judge or a named panel, published before entries close.
- A stated prize, in money, publication, a place on a programme or mentoring.
- Written rules on age, residence, word or time limits and closing date.
- A rights clause that takes first publication only, and gives the rest back.
- A published result, with a shortlist a stranger can go and read.
The routes that charge, and how to spot them
The routes that charge a young writer nearly all run the same mechanism. An open competition invites entries, the entry is praised, the writer is told the poem has been selected for publication in a hardback anthology, and then comes the part the whole thing was built for: the book is offered for sale to the writer, the family and the school, often with a framed certificate or a place in a second, grander volume alongside it. Nobody has lied outright and the poem really is printed. What has been sold, to a fifteen year old and their parents, is the feeling of having been chosen.
Four signs give the model away, and any one of them is enough to stop. Everybody who enters is selected. The prize is a copy of the book rather than money, publication or a stage. The letter arrives too fast for anyone to have read the entries. And the sums go up the more delighted the writer becomes. Entry fees are a separate matter and are not automatically a swindle, since some legitimate competitions charge a few pounds towards judging and say so on the entry page. The test is not whether money moves, it is which direction it moves in when the writer wins.
Where a scheme aimed at children is selling books back to families, the rules on misleading and unfair selling in the United Kingdom are published by the Competition and Markets Authority, local Trading Standards services enforce them, and a report goes in through the Citizens Advice consumer service, which passes it on.
Consent, when the writer is under eighteen
Consent for a writer under eighteen involves more people than the writer, and this is the part that catches out well meaning adults rather than dishonest ones. Copyright ownership has no age limit, but the ability to be held to a contract does, and the law that decides it is not the same across the United Kingdom. In Scotland the Age of Legal Capacity (Scotland) Act 1991 sets out when a young person can enter a transaction and allows a prejudicial one to be set aside afterwards; in England and Wales, and in Northern Ireland, the position rests on the separate rules about contracts made with minors. In all three the working answer is identical. A publisher, a festival or a platform acting properly asks a parent or guardian to sign alongside the writer, and one that would rather no parent were involved has told you something about itself.
Recording adds a second layer, because a film of a young poet performing engages the writer's copyright, the performer's rights in the reading, the copyright of whoever held the camera, the permission of everyone else in the room, and the personal data rules the Information Commissioner's Office regulates. Schools and youth organisations handle that with a written photography and filming consent form, and it is the reason a fifteen year old does not end up as a clip they cannot get taken down.
The order to do this in
The order matters, because most of the damage in this part of a writing life is done by sending a poem out before it is finished. Seven steps, in sequence:
- Finish the poem, and let it sit for a week before deciding it is finished.
- Say it out loud once more, since a poem that stumbles in the mouth is not ready for an editor either.
- Decide whether it has already been published, counting a public post or a video as publication.
- Find one place that fits it, reading that place's guidelines and two things it has already published.
- Send it exactly as the guidelines ask, and write down the date and the title in a list.
- Enter one free competition a term rather than everything that appears in a search.
- Keep writing while it is out, because the next poem is the only reply the writer controls.
Nothing in that list is the point of writing the poem. A prize is a good week and a magazine is a good month, and neither is the reason a room of teenagers stays behind on a Thursday for a fourth draft. The five routes are worth understanding mainly so a young writer walks into them with their rights in their pocket, and can tell in ten seconds which of them wants the poem and which of them wants the money.