A C T C - Special Considerations Poem by Brian Johnston

TO CHECK OUT MY CONTEST.... Just go to my site, do a list of all my 'Poems' and then alphabetise them by title. All 'Poems' that are relevant to my contest will have the word 'A C T C' standing for 'A Challenge Title Contest' as the first letters in their title. It should be easy then for you to read these 'Poems' and figure out what is going on.

The Oct contest on my site is now over and the winner will be chosen democratically (on Nov 12 with results announced) Although not perfect, I admit, it does have some wonderful implications. If all entries were just judged by me, a competitor in the contest who loses could just think I am prejudiced in some way or stupid or even both. But here you are voted on by your peers, and peers are asked to explain their own thinking! ! ! They don't know you so that kind of prejudice is almost eliminated which is wonderful and you may not like the way that they think but their honesty (if they are) gives you truly valuable information that you don't normally get from others, that could actually help improve YOUR POETRY. You may win or lose but you still learn, i.e., EVERYONE IS A WINNER!

We are all tempted to think that when things go against us that There must have been some kind of conspiracy, somehow we were treated unfairly and that's why we lost. But here even if you are the winner... Yea! YOU won! Again! ... there is still criticism for you to mine also for gold. In all of life we are selling ourselves to others. Our success depends on it. What a wonderful window this contest is on your audience. Yes, someone could possibly stack the vote by asking friends to vote for his poem, but what a stupid thing to do, even if it does help him to win. He is asking friends to HELP HIM CHEAT! He could actually lose friends by making such a request! Surely not all of his 'friends are as dishonest as he is?

The real fault of all contests is of course that popularity does not mean that the popular poem is the best poem at all! Only time will decide that issue however opinionated you and I may be about what the true winner is. History may decide in the end that I am the best poet in the world, but right now PH's popularity poll does not and can not ever predict that future. No program, no person, no panel of people is smart enough or has sufficient access to enough data, to make such a decision. We humans are, a flawed? , but still beautiful? , and sometimes self-correcting? creation! Enjoy!