•  $50 Winning Prize  
•  $20 for Honorable Mentions  

•  Eligible for a $1,000 Annual Prize
•  Eligible for Pushcart Prize nomination

•  Free Entry
•  Prior Publication Okay

•  Ends Sunday, Results by Next Sunday


Each week's Winner will receive a $50 cash prize, sent via PayPal to the user's registered e-mail address. Entry is free. 
 
There may occasionally be one or more additional poems that receive an Honorable Mention. This will not necessarily be awarded every week, but when awarded, the poet(s) will receive a $20 cash prize, sent via PayPal to the user's registered e-mail address. All Winners and Honorable Mentions will be eligible to be included in future print anthologies.
 
We will automatically consider all winners and honorable mentions for a $1,000 annual prize, to be awarded in January. 

Every year we will nominate up to six poems from among our winners and honorable mentions for the Pushcart Prize. Please set your user name to the name you would like use for the nomination.
 
Any type of poem is welcome! Formal or informal, long or short, rhyme or free verse, haiku or epic—we like all kinds of poems. Original translations are also welcome and will be evaluated as English poems. However, please include the original poem with any translations.
 
Each week's winner will be selected by Poetry Nook's editorial staff within seven days of contest end. Contest winners can be found in the Contest Winners forum; Honorable Mentions can be found in the Honorable Mentions forum.
 
Note: Most literary magazines consider web-published poems to be "published" and will not consider those poems, so if you want to publish a poem in a literary magazine, we recommend that you wait until it is published and are allowed to re-publish before submitting here. Poems submitted to a contest cannot be removed once the contest is over.
 

Rules
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1. Any length.
2. Any theme.
3. You must be a registered user of this site to post (registration is free).
4. By posting you certify that this is your own work, you hold the copyright, and you are granting us permission to publish it on our site and in a printed anthology.
5. Prior publication is fine, as long as you hold the rights to republish. Please credit the prior publication beneath the poem, in italics.
6. Posting on social media or other sites is encouraged. We actively follow user likes and insightful comments on the poems.
7. Non-English poems are welcome as long as you have an English translation beneath it. You are welcome to submit your own translation of public domain foreign poems or poems where you have received written permission to translate. We will evaluate these translations as English poems and will not consider the original. However, please include the original poem with any translations.
8. Winners will be announced within seven days of the contest end. For example, if the contest ends on Sunday, the winner will be announced by the following Sunday.
9. Payments will be made only via Paypal, sent to your registered email address within one week after the winner is announced. The recipient is responsible for any Paypal fees. We will not send payment by any other method.
10. No feedback will be provided if your poem did not get chosen.
11. If your poem did not get chosen in a given week, you are welcome to resubmit it in a subsequent week.
12. Poets with winning or honorable mention poems are welcome to enter subsequent contests with a different poem. A poem that has already won or earned an honorable mention will be disqualifiied if entered into  subsequent contest. 
13. We recommend copying your poem into the editor from Notepad or some other program that does not add text markup for best formatting results. Please review your formatting after posting to make sure it looks how you want it to look. In the worst case scenario, if you can't get line breaks to work correctly, please disable rich text.
14. Every contest begins on Monday at 12:00 AM and ends on Sunday at 11:59 PM (New York time).
 
Thank you for participating! We look forward to reading your work. 

Press the blue "Compete" button below to participate (viewable to registered users who are logged in and viewing an active contest). You can only participate in active contests, not "Upcoming" contests. Please check the date the contest begins before attempting to participate. The active contest can be found on the home page.

Monday, December 24, 2018 to Monday, December 31, 2018
Contest type: 
Poetry contest
Poem Name Submitted By Likes Comments
NEW YEAR'S EVE ON THE MOON Ciarán Parkes 2 1 [field_honorable_mention][field_winner]
Ladybug poem Dichterauspolen1 1 0 [field_honorable_mention][field_winner]
GWIAZDA Agnieszka Filipek 3 5 [field_honorable_mention][field_winner]
Nest Number We Tried DavidKM 1 0 [field_honorable_mention][field_winner]
Recovery Sara Backer 3 1 [field_honorable_mention][field_winner]
Angel Soul alysiaascovani 1 0 [field_honorable_mention][field_winner]
Love Doesn't Hurt People Mabel Henry 1 0 [field_honorable_mention][field_winner]
A Commuter's Prayer JP Davies 1 0 [field_honorable_mention][field_winner]
AMERICAN SKYLINE Foolonthehill 1 1 [field_honorable_mention][field_winner]
On Parents WordChemist 1 0 [field_honorable_mention][field_winner]
the computer program was named suicide Jake Tringali 1 0 [field_honorable_mention][field_winner]
The Perspective Rodolfo Martin ... 2 1 [field_honorable_mention][field_winner]
Soulful Scream Abdul Malik Mandani 1 1 [field_honorable_mention][field_winner]
My brother and I MaryPP 2 3 [field_honorable_mention][field_winner]
Perfectly Deranged OnyxFrost 1 0 [field_honorable_mention][field_winner]
Indo-Pak Border Fabiyas M V 2 1 [field_honorable_mention][field_winner]
Time's House Bruce Boston 2 1 [field_honorable_mention][field_winner]
Just a bagatelle MyNAh_27 1 1 [field_honorable_mention][field_winner]
A dream that wasn't. KhuzaimaAli 2 1 [field_honorable_mention][field_winner]
Days Ryan Stone 1 0 [field_honorable_mention][field_winner]
In the Progressed Approach Craig J Crawford 1 2 [field_honorable_mention][field_winner]
The Dark-Skinned Brother yessieperez 1 0 [field_honorable_mention][field_winner]
Expectation's Voice peekaboonon 1 0 [field_honorable_mention][field_winner]
CHRISTMAS IN BAMENDA N. Muma Alain 1 0 [field_honorable_mention][field_winner]
Bathtub Thoughts Tina Barnt 1 0 [field_honorable_mention][field_winner]
ocean’s time mutsa 2 0 [field_honorable_mention][field_winner]
From the Shadows C. Ciregna 1 0 [field_honorable_mention][field_winner]
Red Leaves of the Grape Vine Johann F. Potgieter 1 0 [field_honorable_mention][field_winner]
Mighty Explorer Marvin Bryant Jr 0 [field_honorable_mention][field_winner]
Thinking of You Matthew E. Starr 1 0 [field_honorable_mention][field_winner]
Into wanderlustwriter 0 [field_honorable_mention][field_winner]

Comments

Mabel Henry's picture
Love doesn't hurt people, people hurt each other, Fear of love hurts, perfect love cast out all fear, Why? Because fear is a tormentor, not a mentor. Love didn’t hurt me, then who was it and who shall I blame? Nobody really! I invested it in someone, or in others, Who didn’t know how to love themselves, How could I expect them to know how to love me, Love cannot hurt me, because love stands still, Patiently waits! Giving only will propel motion, Emotions are movement, I feel, stirrings in the heart, Conditioning of the mind, respond or react, But, love will never be, who caused me pain, Love loves, has loved, lives to be just love, Hatred is lust, dressed up and masked as love, It parades around as if every day is Halloween, Trick or treat is uttered in silence, as it tells you I love you, Why say it at all if you cannot qualify, lust or love, What is it you are feeling, why the need to lie about how you feel? Is it because you don’t know the difference betwixt hatred and love, You haven't contrasted hatred, which is formed by lust, From love which is pure and genuine created above, Lust will be a close companion when you hate or are hated, Seduction and manipulation at its side, ready to siege, How can you interpret and translate lust into love? Lust and love are not equals, Love is still, it is peaceful, it is kind, There is no kindness in lust, it is hard, it is cruel, Lust for fame, and fortune, Love stands with virtue and honor, It is the belief in love being more than, a concept or idea, Even the idea of love will keep you, hearts afire! But, that is all it may be, just an idea, and not a perfect ideal, If who you choose to give love to who can’t or doesn’t feel as you do, That is a choice, can you own that decision? Love is not a taker or a receiver, Love is always the giver, Giving till gone, so it seems, Replenishing every emotion not to break but to breakthrough, In covenant, it takes at least two to give love, Not a giver and a receiver, both must give, or That is more of a debt, that you will need to repay or forgive, Rather than repent over your own quality of love, to keep it pure, and safe, Those emotions come from the treasury of your own heart, If you give it away, there are no guarantees, you will ever receive, The quality of what you give or gave, then you suffer loss, Are you willing to revolve around love, as it stands still Resolve who you love, make sure you can love you first, And when you love? Love really isn’t the one moving, It stands still, it is your emotions that always move you, Love will be right where you left it, in your heart, When who you love or loved, Is really the one you blame, Process your own crime scene, determine who is the perpetrator, Is it you, is it me, what should be done? I should repent! For placing myself in danger, and in harm's way, Not knowing how to love me enough to read the signs, When only you know how to love you, and how fragile you are, Without relying on another pair of arms of flesh, which will fail you, They can't be with you and you can't be with them, at all times, As you live, please learn how to love you, You won’t really expect it from anyone, but you, And it will be the gift you give and not be waiting to receive, The power of God's love is in the gift that is given, not really received, Love's power is giving, and not regarding the painful accompaniment, In not receiving, what you have given, I gave in the office of love, The power of love needs more than one, in any and every relationship, A broken heart will need more than you know, to heal, Will or can you recognize pain, when it is not your own? Just because they cannot recognize the pain that is their own, And comes from their own heart, broken pretending to be whole, Guard your heart with all the relentless determination within you, Regardless of all opposition in your way, because out of your heart, Flow the issues of love. Love can't hurt you, you are moving, it is still, Conclusion, don't you hurt you, and neither can others hurt you.

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