Are you a poet? Here's a fun contest for you

If you are a poet or just fancy trying your hand, there's a fun competition going on with a dealine of January 28, 2014. Here are the details:

Each Tuesday before midday (GMT), from the 16th of April 2013, five words are posted on this competition page. Entrants have one week to compose and submit poems that must include all five words.

At noon next Tuesday, these words will no longer be eligible, and replaced with five new words. The competition will run for a total of forty weeks, until the last week of January 2014.

The Prize

 A prize of 500 euro will be awarded to one winner, and if available, then invited to read at Ó Bhéal’s seventh anniversary event, on Monday 14th of April, 2014 (an additional travel fee of 100 euro plus B&B accommodation will be provided for this). The shortlisted poems and winning entry will also be published in Five Words Vol VII – the next annual anthology of five word poems, launched at the same event.

A panel of poets from the Ó Bhéal board will adjudicate, and a shortlist of twelve poems including the overall winner will be announced during the first week of March, 2014.

How to submit

Entry is open to all countries. Poems cannot exceed 50 lines in length (including line breaks), and must include all five words listed during this week. A modicum of poetic license is acceptable. As long as the original spelling is intact within your syntax, you’re welcome to pluralise, join or even split the word to form two adjoining words. There is no limit on submission quantities, although each payment and submission will need to be made separately. Entries to be sent no later that 12pm on Tuesday.

 There is an entry fee of 5 Euros (about $6.80 or £4.17)

Full details and entry link at: http://www.obheal.ie/blog/?page_id=2371

 Don't expect the words to be June, moon and spoon. This week's are giraffe, cynosure, ceramic, universe, and light. As you can see this is only for poets who like a challenge! (But even if you don't enter, you might enjoy seeing what you can come up with.)

"I seek a poem written by a student attending college,"

Said the editor to the young man.

"Universe? Oh yes, there's lots of that," the young man said.

(...now you know why I don't write poems.) 

 (Need to make more time to write? You'll find a wealth of helpful strategies in my book, "Focus: use the power of targeted thinking to get more done," published by Pearson and available now from Amazon or your other favorite bookseller--for you or as a great present.)