With the subject of bad literature in the air, it seems fitting to share my favorite writing contest with you.
Anyone who has ever tried to write poetry has surely written a bad poem. It's a relatively easy thing to do. Just throw in a few vague adjectives, try to be too clever with your wordplay, maybe even filch a lyric or two from your favorite rock band, and you are the proud creator of a bad poem.
But what if you want to be more than a bad poet? What if you want to be the best bad poet you can be?
Well, my friend, then you had better start training for the Wergle Flomp Poetry Contest, which is currently in its 8th year. The contest gets its name from the alter-ego of David Taub and showcases the absolute best in bad poems. It all started when Taub decided he was sick of vanity publishers like Poetry(dot)com.
What happens when you submit to a vanity publisher is this: no matter how bad your poem is, you're sent a letter saying that you are a semi-finalist and your work will be published in an anthology (which you can purchase for 50 dollars or so). You can then go to a huge awards ceremony (for about 2500 dollars) where you will be presented with an award for your poem. In essence they are the 'You may already be a winner!' pop-ups of the publishing world.
Taub decided that, as an experiment, he would deliberately try to get a rejection letter from one of these publishers. Adopting the pen name of Wergle Flomp, Taub sent in the now famous 'Flubblebop'. Wergle's poem—a series of random letters with some rather emphatic punctuation—received a glowing acceptance letter. Taub tried with several other poems and pen names to be rejected, even going so far as to blatantly insult the site. Yet Taub was a semi-finalist each time.
To continue Taub's great tradition, Winning Writers established a legitimate poetry contest. The rules are simple: You write a deliberately terrible poem, send it to a vanity publisher, then forward your poem to Winning Writers. They truly judge the entrants and choose their favorite bad poems to receive cash prizes.
But before you go sending in your angst-ridden scribbles, take a look at past winners. These are some skillfully crafted pieces of bad poetry. They are also hilarious and to be enjoyed by all. Two of my personal favorites from years past are 'The Tight Thong of J. Alice Prufrock' and 'The Castration of Sam McGee' though there are any number of gems in the archives.
If you still want to be
the best of the worst,
Flomp takes submissions
til April 1st.
