COMPETITION??

I have considered how to write this for a few days... It's really been a week! My ambivalence has been due to my personal feelings on the matter, I want to attempt to remain objective while relating my personal experience.

Recently, I was given a flyer for a prison poetry competition by one of the college staff, initially I disregarded it, after a conversation with someone whose opinion I have come to value I wrote a piece for it. Personally, I dislike prison poetry and art competitions with a passion. They can not be transactional due to the fact the only people who have a semblance of winning are the first, second, and third place winners. Is it really winning when you have to surrender the rights to your intellectual property? Submitting to these competitions I have noticed that they require original pieces, the rights to the piece, and they may return the works of those who did not win. While you wait for deliberation on if you are fortunate enough to be deemed a winner by someone whose qualifications you are unaware of, they are publishing vol. 1 of a poetry book and piecing together vol. 2 from the 997,000 submissions that were not accepted. Prison Poetry and Art Competitions: *Are Predatory - Creative inmates don't usually know or believe a real market exists for their work or how to access that market, they see the opportunity as a way to make money. Not realizing or caring they are competing on a national scale. *Misleading - Giving away rights to your IP removes your right to your work Rather it is used or not. Who is to say if returned that the returned document isn't a copy of the original or the original wasn't copied. *You are not paid as a freelancer or a piece worker. This is a few issues I have with competitions. I needed to know what the experience was like, so I wrote one titled 'DREAMORY' I will post it at the end of this. It wasnt used in anything else and it was an original piece. I had it submitted by their deadline and I waited. There was no: *Thank you or verification email *Progress update *Notice of of pieces selected I should have heard something by April 12, 2025. Honestly, I am grateful for a poor experience. It strengthens my resolve and gives me a baseline of expectations for the BEHIND THE EYES platform and Vol. II when I get the royalty and licensing legalities worked out. Take care and enjoy! 1NF@MOUS! _____________________________________________________________________ DREAMORY They asked us to write about dreams! Hmm.... How, I've been asleep for years? I must be, right, you're still gone? Do I even know how to dream? Or, do I just want, taking any action I think is necessary, while behaving in ways meant to assist me in attaining those wants? Dreams are complicated! Now a memory, one so fragmented and elusive to recall, as lost time, that it feels like a dream, that, is easier! Holding this memory, is like the T.V we had when I was young! Remember, the black and white one, about 13 inches, sat on the kitchen counter by the basement door, had rabbit ears, and a broken antenna with foil around it? We were continuously waving those arms like a flagger during rush hour traffic, in Seattle, practicing for a state cheer championship, with turrets. The best picture will always be a quarter screen, through shuffling static. Waking, the flavorful-meaty aroma of bacon with a hint of freshly brewed coffee, rides warm air currents, teasing my senses, and coaxed my stomach awake. Lying there listening as you practice vocal arrangements with Kirk Franklin and the Nu Nation Crew, the rhythmic clanging of washing clay and metal accompany the tracks snares. I pull the blanket over my head enjoying the beds warmth, dreading, getting out of it. But! Knowing if I do not you will be on your way soon. Lazily, I roll-slide out of bed, shuffling to my door. I am met by my brothers as we make our way down the hall. Reaching the threshold, we stop, taking in the scene. I cross first, stepping into an empty, dark, chilled kitchen. When a memory is stripped by the skeletal hands of time warping and fading, does it mold into a nightmare? Is a fragmented memory enough to sustain the semblance of a euphoric dream state? Or, do I just count myself fortunate to have been able to hold the memory for however long? Then hope that when I wake, it resurfaces as a dream? Written: February 21, 2025