One of the rule in poetry contest is minimum of 7 lines which restricts a particular form of poem "LIMERICK" Why such unjustice to Limerick which is witty and not a free verse!
The rule is relaxed for some poetry contests, but I agree that it is an overused rule that also precludes Haiku poems. I suspect that it probably began with single-line poem entries that had no structure, but it dates back to before I joined. I'd be in favor of dropping that limitation from most of the poetry competitions.
I think it is place to encourage some thought and effort is put into the contest. This is of course not to say that these are not in place now. I believe entries of only four lines were making a mockery of the contest when others were submitting 20. This argument does not take into account the benefits of quality vs. quantity but I believe it should remain in place to try to encourage thoughtful poetry. There is a minimum word limit in the short story contests too, and whilst this does not exclude recognised entry types such as the strict haiku in poetry, it does discourage unedited stream-of-conscious notes of short length. These contests are in place to promote creative writing and poetry and I am in favour of any improvement that can be made to the structure to achieve this but I am not convinced a removing of the line limit will achieve this.
The poetry contest was set like that to encourage members to step out of their comfort zone and to experiment with different ideas and forms of poetry. If you would like, you could always PM the moderator in charge (I am no longer in charge of the contest unfortunately) and ask if there is a possibility that he could create a contest where people are to write a limerick. It could be a good theme for a poetry contest, you need only ask. However, for the poetry contests, the line count will remain at a minimum of 7 lines to make it fair all round. Torana
The rule is there to prevent people from effectively spamming the contests with "non-poems" a line or two long. However, in light of this request, I am intending a limerick-themed contest coming up soon, and I would be willing to consider other forms of poem shorter than the 7-line requirement, such as haikus, as the theme for future contests.
Regarding the format of haiku and limerick - there is currently nothing to prevent an entry consisting of a series of these structures, totalling more than 7 lines.
That isn't the same thing, though. A single Haiku is a distillation of a metaphor down to it's barest essence. Making three Haiku to represent a theme in order to meet a minimum, as a single piece, is inconsistent with the spirit of Haiku. I can see the point of making each entry represent a good effort, but to me, a short poem often requires far more work than a longer one. And after all, there IS a voting phase, so I would hope that fluff entries would get the vote they deserve regardless of length. If we don't want to eliminate the minimum line count, how about occasionally setting contests with maximum limits (words or syllables, lines with maximum syllable counts per line, etc) I believe these could be very challenging indeed!
I never meant that a series of haiku or limerick are the same as the pure form of one - but that if someone was intent on submitting in that format a series would be acceptable. Agree fully however that a haiku specific or limerick specific contest, or any other format (not too strict) too. We couldn't dismiss any entry that failed to hit each prescribed foot, dactyl, trochee etc or we'd have few to no valid entries!
I am in favor of what Banzai proposed,having separate contests for Limericks and other form of poems and not hampering the existing contest. That way there will be flavor of different form of poetries. Thanks All for taking out your time on this discussion. Regards
I also agree with the above idea to keep the two separate. I don't normally write limericks or haiku poems but if there was a contest specifically for them, with a theme just as the normal one, I'd probably try it out.
I'm contemplating doing the next contest with a theme of simply "limericks", to test the water on this. Any thoughts?
Sounds like a plan. You're the PoCoMaster at present. Shaking things up a bit with something different is, in my opinion, a great idea.
good idea... and you could also satisfy the haiku writers with one for them, in the future... maybe just switch around now and then?
Sounds cool. It would be different from the usual cotests. I never wrote limerick or Haiku before. So it would interesting and challenging as well. Good job deep breath and Banzai, for suggesting and implementing respectively.
