How to Win a Poetry Contest
Quick answer: How to win a poetry contest: read past winners, fit the theme without chasing it, revise for sound and ending, and follow the rules judges score by.
To win a poetry contest, send a finished poem that fits the contest's taste, obeys every rule, opens with a line that demands a second read, and ends somewhere the judge did not predict. Study the past winners first, because they are the clearest statement of what this particular judging table rewards. Winning poems are almost never the flashiest in the pile; they are the ones with no weak lines.
There is no trick that substitutes for craft, but there is a repeatable discipline. Judges read hundreds of poems in long sittings, which means your poem is competing for attention as well as admiration. Everything below follows from that one fact.
Do the homework before you write a word
Read at least two previous winning poems and the judge's report if one exists. Note the length, the register, the amount of formal play the contest has historically rewarded. If a competition names its criteria, weight your revision toward them; Writory, for one, scores creativity, emotion, structure, language and theme, and a poem that is brilliant on four but ignores the theme entirely leaves marks on the table.
Then check the rules like a lawyer. Line limits, anonymity requirements, file formats and previous-publication clauses eliminate a startling share of entries before any judging happens. Nobody wins from the disqualified pile.
Handle the theme without writing an essay about it
Themed contests punish the obvious. If the theme is bridges, the judge will read forty poems containing an actual bridge and a metaphor about connection by lunchtime. The winning entry usually approaches the theme from its edge: the toll collector, the river that resents being crossed, the two towns that stopped speaking. Aim the poem at something you already needed to write, then let the theme in through a side door.
A quick test: cover the title and ask whether the poem still works for a reader who never saw the theme. If yes, and the theme is still discoverably present, you have the balance right.
Revise for the reading room
First lines and last lines decide contests. Cut throat-clearing openings, the two lines of scene-setting most drafts start with, and begin where the poem actually begins. Read the piece aloud twice: once for stumbles, once for sound. Then look hard at the ending; the commonest flaw at final-judging tables is a poem that explains its own imagery in the last two lines, as if the poet lost their nerve.
Finally, let the poem cool for at least a week before entering. The revision you make after seven days away is usually the one that would have decided a judge.
What poets can take from this
- Enter poems that have survived at least three serious revisions and one cooling-off week.
- Study the most recent winner, not one from a decade ago; judges and tastes rotate.
- Send your strongest single poem rather than padding with extra entries.
- Title the poem as carefully as you wrote it; judges read titles first.
- Keep to the line count with room to spare instead of brushing the limit.
- Treat every loss as reconnaissance and re-enter with new work.
Try it yourself
Take a contest theme you have seen before, list the ten most obvious approaches, discard them all, and write the eleventh.
Questions
Do judges really read every entry?
Yes, though not equally. Screening rounds give each poem a fast first read, and only the survivors get the slow, repeated attention of the final table. Your opening lines determine which kind of reading you receive.
Should I write a poem specifically for the contest theme?
You can, but give it time to become a real poem rather than an assignment. Poems written the weekend before a deadline usually read like it. Starting from an image you already care about beats starting from the theme.
Does a rhyming poem stand a chance in modern contests?
Absolutely, if the rhyme serves the poem rather than steering it. Judges reject forced rhyme, not rhyme itself; a well-made sonnet or villanelle stands out precisely because so few entrants attempt one well.
By the Writory editorial team, reviewed by working poets. Updated July 2026.
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