Midlist Writer: I'm a prize-winning poet (NOT!)

Saturday 16 January 2010

I'm a prize-winning poet (NOT!)

A friend who used to revel in the easy living of Madrid recently returned to the high-powered grind of Dubai. It's her fault I got into blogging, and therefore it's her fault you're reading this, so blame her. Anyway, she had a competition on her blog to win a copy of Super Freakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, And Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance. All we had to do was give a reason why we wanted the book and the two best entries would get copies. I sent this limerick:

A friend of mine lives in Dubai
(for reasons I’m not sure why)
she has a neat book
I’d sure like to look
at flag-waving hookers, oh my!

OK, that's pretty crappy, but as a limerick on a friend's personal blog you can't expect much more, and hey, I won!

So now I can honestly say I'm a prize-winning poet, but I won't. The reason I won't is that waaaaay too many struggling writers make fake or wildly exaggerated claims about their success, like using the meaningless title "Pulitzer Prize Nominee" or boasting of all their self-published publications. I've ranted about this before in greater detail. It seems some writers will grasp at any straw in an attempt to make themselves look good.

They should save their energy. Pros (like editors and agents) can see right through it. It's not like me bragging about being a "prize-winning poet" will lead to a career in poetry, now will it?

Photo courtesy Duncharris via Wikimedia Commons.

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