A SUITE of seven poems is not an uncommon collection.
I think that seven sonnets on a certain theme, or dedicated to a single person is pretty common.
It’s called a sonnet sequence.
More ornately composed, it can be a crown of sonnets.
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But I’m talking beyond sonnets.
I’m talking about poems in general; and love poems for our contest.
So yeah, seven poems, not necessarily sonnets, of various or similar length, on the subject of love.
In Hiligaynon!
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Now, language is important here because it is the name of the category: Hiligaynon Love Poetry.
By Hiligaynon, I mean that it is distinguishably Hiligaynon.
If it is mixed with other languages, I will allow 20% maximum of such other languages.
So, 80% Hiligaynon, 20% English (or French, or Spanish, or Kinaray-a, or Cebuano, or Tagalog) in a poem is okay.
Please do not argue if you have six poems in Hiligaynon, and one poem in English; that is not 14% English.
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Of course, I want a masterful handling of tapulanga and tun-ug, or bukaw and dupoydupoy.
But why don’t you explore love in the time of missed calls, coffee dates, texting/sexting, eyeballs, sea wall, Yamaha Mio motorcycles, face masks and shields?
Ultimately, it’s about your poetic sensibilities, your poetic choices.
I’m just saying, to be really new and 21st century, you may want to celebrate stuff of our everyday 21st century.
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So many times I have argued for brevity in poetry.
This is because I hate poems that read like novels.
My argument: If you write poems of a certain length, you can end up prosaic.
I mean, it is hard to be prosaic if you have something important to say in five lines.
Unless you just want to write prose, and chop it up into five lines for a visual appearance of a poem.
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June 24-30 are the submission dates.
Online submissions only to this email: 500tinaga@gmail.com
If you are Ilonggo, you would appreciate that it means 500 words, from the earliest 500-word story contests of the Peter’s Prize.
The deadest deadline is June 30, midnight, Philippine time.
Entries should be in Word document format; or if that is not available, any word processor would do.
I really do not like PDF because right now because I have a hard time manipulating it.
You see, I have to remove names and contact information of authors to facilitate blind judging.
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I also have to format/reformat all entries to look the same in fonts, font size, font color.
If you want to help with your entries, let your font be Times New Roman, size 12, black.
Please do not worry about spacing (singe or double) or pagination (page numbers).
You worry about these when your winning entry is being formatted as a book!
I am most likely to format your entry for the judges as: Title of the collection; followed by title of the first poem, followed by its text; then title of the second poem, followed by its text, et cetera until the seventh poem.
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I am all for simplicity of submission.
As a professional contestant of literary prizes, I know how daunting the rules can be.
Some even require notarial services to ensure authenticity.
I am not worried about that.
I am pretty good at smelling plagiarized works, and I am quick to disqualify those.
If they go past me, I’m pretty sure the judges will catch them, so don’t even dare copy the works of others and pass them as your own.
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Anyway, granted that your plagiarized work got past me and the judges, I will ultimately require authenticity papers (notarized) when you win, and when we decide to publish your work.
See how you cannot get away with plagiarism at the Peter’s Prize?
So yeah, in my heart of hearts, I do not think that a contestant would submit a plagiarized work.
It’s just too risky.
Too sad to burn your name as a writer that way./PN
