ADVICE FOR WAR POETSby Jendi Reiter

Each year our War Poetry Contest received many poems with striking images and

compelling stories that nonetheless didn't make it to the final round. Here are some of the

most common problems.

TOPIC AND VIEWPOINT

Subtlety wins points with us, and probably with most of the quality contests you'll

enter. The more straightforward and simple your message, the harder you must work to

make the language fresh and give real individuality to the characters and scenes. Poems

about such perennial topics as the loss of a loved one in war, the suffering of innocent

civilians, or the heroism of soldiers absolutely must rise above generalities. Your English

teacher was right: Show, don't tell.

Avoid ideological oversimplification ("we are good/they are evil" or vice

versa). This defeats the purpose of our contest, which is to encourage reflection about a

complex and important human problem that defies easy solutions.

Poems about specific events tend to work better than poems about war in the

abstract. Anecdotes and period details add originality and help the reader make a personal

connection with the poem's world.

Emotional complexity makes a poem more genuine. A poem that only expresses

one emotion, such as praise for fallen heroes or disdain for war-mongering leaders, may

not shed as much light on the human condition as a poem that shows the interplay of

conflicting impulses (within a single person or a society).

STRUCTURE AND STYLE

We have no stylistic bias against formal poetry, experimental poetry, or any

other aesthetic. Though free-verse narratives have dominated past winners' lists, this

primarily results from the mix of work we receive each year. Because this contest has a

theme, certain experimental poems may be at a slight disadvantage to the extent that one

cannot tell whether they are "about" war. The formal poems we've received often suffer

from archaic language or an overly sentimental message, which is why we haven't

published more of them. Aside from those cautions, we welcome all styles.

Longer poems, to succeed, must maintain consistent quality throughout. Shorter

poems, while they may be more tightly constructed, must have enough heft to compete

against the longer sagas. The ideal poem seizes one's interest right away, has something

substantial to say, and gets there without flagging. It could be half a page, or five pages.

Stick the dismount. An ending that falls flat can knock a poem from contention.

It's like a song that stops in the middle of a musical phrase, instead of ending on a chord

that resolves the melody. On the other hand, an ending that's too obvious is like the drum-

roll after a bad joke - it tries too hard and insults the reader's intelligence. The most

powerful endings add a new dimension to what has gone before, giving readers the sense

that they've reached the end of the journey. Where were you trying to take the reader?

Did you get there? The ending should leave no doubt about why the poem was written.

IMAGERY AND WORD CHOICE

Images that should be used sparingly: Certain phrases and metaphors

tend to recur frequently in the poems we receive. While it's possible to use them in a new

and interesting way, too often they are a substitute for reaching for a more original image

that would have a greater impact on the reader. Be alert for journalistic and rhetorical

clichés when writing war poetry, and ask yourself whether there's a fresher image that

could express your meaning. The following phrases and images have become hard to use

effectively:

Dogs of war

Winds of war

Fog of war

American eagle

Dove of peace

Word made flesh

Stock images of American political parties (e.g. fat-cat Republicans)

Common political catchphrases (e.g. "no blood for oil")

Boys playing with war toys (either as ironic/nostalgic contrast to real

war, or as criticism of war-making politicians)

Avoid ethnic slurs, even if the soldiers in your poem would actually have spoken

that way about the enemy. (This occurs most often in poems about WWII and Vietnam.)

We've never seen this enhance a poem.

Exclamation points should be used very sparingly. Your imagery and content

should be doing most of the work to build intensity; don't use punctuation as a crutch.

Also, resist the temptation to tack on an obvious concluding line that spells out the

message for anyone who didn't understand the rest of the poem.

CONTEST ETIQUETTE AND FORMATTING

Please don't put your names on poems when the contest asks for entries

to be submitted anonymously. That rule is meant to improve the fairness of the judging.

Many contests will simply discard improperly formatted entries, without notifying you or

returning your fee. We don't do that, but it takes us time to cover up the names and the

entry looks less professional.

Please don't include illustrations, clip art, drawings, photos, borders, or

titles in fancy fonts. Loud formatting makes us concerned that you don't think your poem

can stand on its own.

Please don't submit more poems than your entry fee covers.

Please spell-check your entries or, if you don't use a computer, ask a friend

to proofread for spelling and grammar. Watch out for common mix-ups such as it's/its,

desert/dessert, pour/pore.

Please don't write to the judge to ask "why didn't I win?" I wish I

could give individualized feedback on entries that didn't make the cut, since we get so

many poems with great potential, but it's just not practical. (If you do have comments or

questions, please be nice.) Read the winning entries at the links below and compare them

to your style of writing. Seek feedback from more experienced writers or teachers who

have read a lot of poetry, and consider revising your poem for next year's contest. This

contest is competitive, the distinctions between poems can be fine, and the judging

process is necessarily somewhat subjective, so don't be discouraged if you didn't place

highly this time.

Please notify us promptly if your poem is accepted

elsewhere. After our first year in 2002, we decided to require that War Poetry

Contest entries be previously unpublished, in order to advance the contest's goal of

encouragingnew reflections on this important theme. However, because of our long

response time, we do not impose a no-simultaneous-submissions rule. The reciprocal

courtesy we ask from our contestants is to notify us as soon as a pending entry in the War

Poetry Contest is accepted for publication elsewhere. Even if the deadline has passed, we

may be open to substitutions. Please do not wait to withdraw your poems until we contact

you as a potential winner.

Please don't resubmit poems or sections of poems that have

already won a prize in our contest, even if you've revised them. Also, if I

have given you feedback on a poem, you shouldn't submit (or resubmit) it to our contest

because that is unfair to the other entrants who have not corresponded with the judge.

However, feel free to resubmit other entries that didn't win last year, particularly if you've

revised them. A mix of old and new poems is usually a better strategy than resubmitting

an identical set from last year's contest.

SUGGESTED READINGS IN WAR POETRY

Poems

See Henry Reed's "Naming of Parts" and Wilfred Owen's "Greater Love". The

former is a masterpiece of irony and understatement; the latter is heartbreaking like a

Puccini opera. Owen (biography, war poems) and Siegfried Sassoon are two

leading poetic chroniclers of the horrors of World War I. For more contemporary work,

see the poetry and stories of Israeli author Elisha Porat.

Books

For work in a contemporary style, Mark Levine's book Enola Gay is an amazing,

surreal meditation on the apocalypse that we are now capable of bringing on ourselves.

Levine is also an example of someone with an excellent poetic ear, who understands the

sounds of the English language so well that his free verse has the inexorable rhythm of

formal poetry. Though not a war poet per se, Richard Hugo also shares this quality,

and for that reason is one of my favorite poets. He has an extraordinary ability to capture

the feel of a place. His poems are collected in Making Certain It Goes On.

Periodicals

War, Literature & the Arts, sponsored by the English Department of the US Air

Force Academy, publishes such notable poets as Richard Wilbur and Carolyn

Forché.

Click here for additional war poetry resources.

Click here to read winning poems from past War Poetry Contests with

comments from the judges.