I received my first award for writing in grade school, for an essay about fire prevention. (Made me scared to death of open flames for years, but that's another story.) When I was in high school, one of my teachers entered my poetry into some state-wide contests, which I won. Later, I attended BYU on writing scholarship — again, the result of entering a contest. Dan and I founded the Ruth Roberts High School Writing Contest for the New Mexico State Poetry Society (named after my own high school teacher who entered my poems, unbeknownst to me, in contests).
So — I believe in contests. Here is a link to a Web site that keeps up to date lists of current poetry contests. I know some of you readers are also poets — perhaps you're just waiting to be discovered through a contest! If you know of contests, especially for beginning poetry writers, I would appreciate links and will publish them. Here's the link to which I referred. May God bless your efforts.
Happy writing —
