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$5000 Winner of the Lulu Poetry Contest Announced

In Announcement, Yearly Contest on 28 January 2010 tagged , , with 23 comments

We are proud to announce the winner of the First Annual Lulu Poetry Contest:
Timothy Ivan Brumley for his poem Four Sisters
Congratulations Timothy!

Last April, Lulu set out to change www.poetry.com for the better, to make it a place that creates real value for the poets using it. In the last ten months, we have been astonished by the sheer amount of creativity and effort that has sprung forth from the strong community of over 7 million poets using Lulu Poetry. Lulu is proud to host the largest collection of poetry in the world and we have worked hard to further develop that community by providing them with the tools to publish and inspire creativity. Lulu has instituted daily, monthly, and yearly poetry contests that have rejuvenated many authors’ excitement for their craft while helping to improve their work through ratings. It makes us so happy to see people do what they love, and we have awarded over $9,000 in prizes so far this year. Now, Timothy will receive a grand prize of $5,000 for the Yearly contest.

Lulu Poetry is home to over 14 million poems. Several poets have hundreds of works listed and we average over 3,000 newly submitted poems each week. We’re always attracted to any passionate group of authors with an urge to create and the Lulu Poetry community is definitely that. Selecting the first yearly winner ever was not easy. Our users are engaged by reading, rating, and sharing poems and we are thrilled that the community helped to make the winning choice by rating poems they enjoyed. The poetry contests are ongoing with new winners announced each week. To participate just submit your poetry to Lulu Poetry’s free site.

Lulu Poetry is always looking to grow and our ongoing goal is to help even more people interested in poetry spark their creativity and enjoy the community we are developing. Lulu Poetry users are willing to go the extra step to put their work and ideas out there for the world to see and we respect their passion and dedication. Being backed by a company that has helped more than 1 million authors in 80 countries has our poetry authors excited. At Lulu, we know that the annual contest is more than just prize money, it’s validation for our poets‘ hard work and the hard work of the entire poetry community.


23 Comments

Hi Annie,
Wow! What wonderful news to wake up to! Thank you!
When I first started writing poetry my goals were to inspire people, and to honor God. But mostly to inspire other people to honor God as anyone can tell by reading my poetry. And to His credit He has shed His glory on me.
Thank you for you patience and for your professionalism, and thank everyone that voted for me. I can hardly wait to see what this next year brings forth.

Posted by Timothy I. Brumley on 28 January 2010 @ 3pm

Hi Annie,
Just one more thing, to that anonymous heckler that keeps critiquing my poems’ tags…….Get a life.

Posted by Timothy I. Brumley on 28 January 2010 @ 3pm

[...] are ongoing with new winners selected each week through community ratings. Be sure to check out the Lulu Poetry blog for the full story and contest information; and keep checking in with Lulu.com for more ways to publish and inspire [...]

Posted by $5000 Winner of the Lulu Poetry Contest Announced | Lulu Blog on 28 January 2010 @ 4pm

Wow Wow Wow I don’t write poetry I just like to read them when I say the winning I was like who what why come on I saw some absolute great poem and you picked the jesus holy rolly the judge must be very religous because tim is okay as a poet, not good, well I won’t be reading poetry at your site thanks and you do have some pretty good poetry on your site, next year pick a poet.

Posted by john doe on 31 January 2010 @ 9am

Tim I’m sorry I almost forgot pplease don’t comment on what I said just expressing my opinion. Congrats on winning even though I’m very surprise very surprise very very surprise.

Posted by john doe on 31 January 2010 @ 10am

Hey Tim congatulations on the winning of the contest, I’m happy for you. Listen just turn the other check when you here bad comments. I think some people are expressing thier opinion and some are just plain jealous. It was a good poem congratulations on the winning of the contest. You should be very proud, have you thought about writing a book let us know.

Posted by sean lee sanders on 31 January 2010 @ 10am

Thanks Sean,
These hecklers give me no pause whatsoever. Actually,
I absolutely love it! I see them as jealous reverse barometers. The simple truth is that there can be but one winner.
These so called poets today have absolutely no discipline to the rules of poetry. Most have taken shelter under the banner of free verse, much to their own detriment, and they lack form and structure, or are void of imagery and emotion altogether. Some poems have good enough content to escape those rules, however most of the poems I read on this site do not.
I’ve studied poetry in college and through the years and have tried to remain disciplined to the rules thereof.
Anyone can write an emotionally charged paragraph and shape it into stanzas and try to pass it off as poetry, but that doesn’t make it a poem in my opinion.
I’m sorry for those people that take offense in my love for my God, I only wish that they could find the absolute peace in him that I have. And by the way, ask anyone that knows me and they’ll tell you that I’m anything but a Holy-Roller. I don’t even attend church regularly. My relationship with Him is very personal.
I was going to go ahead and publish my poems this year, however on second thought I think that I’ll hang around another year and this time really apply myself. If for no other reason than to hear these hecklers squeal!

Posted by Timothy I. Brumley on 1 February 2010 @ 3pm

OMG! Here come Heckle and Jeckle! Hey John D., did you ever consider that you were a consensus of one? Let’s see now, one opinion out of how many authors? Seven million something was it? Gee, did you ever feel like you might be a minority? What do you think it might be that the rest know or accept that you can’t? Or is it that you’re just sore because you or yours didn’t win?
I personally think that Four Sisters is a great poem full of emotion and imagery and style. Congrats Tim, keep it up!

Posted by Danny Conley on 2 February 2010 @ 1am

Thanks Danny!

Posted by Timothy I. Brumley on 2 February 2010 @ 1am

john doe isn’t a minority he’s just the first that had the guts to speak up. I question this choice as I have on another post but that one was edited out by management – big surprise. This site isn’t about creativity, it’s about suckering in wannabes to spend money on publishing cliched tripe.

Posted by Bob on 2 February 2010 @ 2pm

Hi Bob and John D.
I respect your opinion, but ask that you please be kind to the poets who all work very hard and are taking a risk by posting their work. You are, of course, welcome to rate poems to provide a critique and to post your own poems on the site as well.

Lulu Poetry is a free site. You are not required to publish at Lulu.com or spend any money in order to submit poems or enter the contest. Our goal is to provide a community for lovers of poetry everywhere. We are also happy if poets would like to publish their work at Lulu.com, but that is optional.

Thank you,
Annie

Posted by Annie on 3 February 2010 @ 9am

come check out my poem! It’s the first I have ever written and I am afraid to show it to my friends so I felt it would be nice to show complete strangers. Poetry is an amazing form of expression, I am excited to just have found it.
A Lover’s Resistance
Love, strike me with your arrow,
Hit my heart with your sharpest spear.
Love, strike me with unrelenting force,
Hit my soul with your burning desire.
Love, strike me with the hope I have seemed to have lost,
Let your greatest assassin slip through my cracked walls of resistance.
Love, strike me in the cold of night,
In the the depths of my anxious slumber.
Love,
Let the light of day open my eyes to new found wisdom.
Love,
Let the light of day open my heart to new found romance.
Love,
Let the light of day open up my soul with undying passion.

Love, strike me just once more,
Let me fight for you till my last dying breath.

Posted by mark on 3 February 2010 @ 11pm

Thanks Annie,
Maybe we should start calling this site Lulu’s Day Care Center, because that’s what it’s beginning to sound like here reading some of these comments. I think that I should add a stanza to my poem “I Remember When”, i.e. “Where has all the respect gone”
I do appreciate you and your mother like professionalism, waiting and biting you tongue until someone starts throwing blows before you intervene. And make no mistake about it John and Bob, you have started this by throwing some pretty serious and disrespectful blows. Your a valuable asset to this site Annie, but I think that I can handle this riff-Raf on my own.
Normally I try not to get involved in these types of petty bickering’s, however since providence has seen fit to place me at the center of this one, and since I am also one who stands accused, then I feel that I am fully within my rights, if not my obligations, to speak out.
I offer no defense for myself, mainly because I don’t need one, I am curious though John as to why you felt justified in attacking my ability as a poet(or lack of it in your opinion) when I’m only guilty of the exact same thing required of every poet on this site, that of creating and submitting. I would like to point out some irregularities in your comments that are apparent to me that you two, or one, seem to have either not considered or lost complete perspective of. I say it that because I have a strong suspicion that the names John Doe and Bob are both aliases of a single individual, if I am mistaken then I apologize.
First to the person hiding behind the alias of John Doe. Such anger and complete outright disrespect! John, your statement has all the characteristics of a elementary school students temper tantrum, complete with your statement of intent to leave this site and not ever come back, which sounds synonymous to me like “If I can’t be the president of this club then I’m going home, and I’m not going to be your friend anymore!” That thought alone, while being acutely immature, would have been acceptable had you stopped there, however you continued with some pretty malicious accusations to both Lulu’s staff and myself, and that’s where you crossed the line my friend. You have accused Lulu’s judges of being biased, and letting their own personal beliefs influence their decision, and in so many words you have accused me of being a lousy poet.
Such anger and blasting unfounded accusations are not characteristic of the reaction of a visitor reading poetry not personally vested in the contest, as declared in your comment. No, such anger and completely unfounded, hurtful, malicious and brazenly immature comments could only be the product of someone invested in the contest itself, and had all but wrote his/her acceptance speech for the grand prize in their own mind, hence the need to remain anonymous. This, along with your alias, leaves the faint but distinctive odor of subterfuge and dishonesty
You said in your comment that there were a lot of poems better than mine that should have been chosen, yet you offer no example to support your argument. And that may very well be true, but what are they? Name them so we can all compare them then. You accused the judges of letting their own personal convictions of influencing their decision making process, where’s your proof? Because I have noticed that the judges have gone pretty much out of their way to avoid choosing religiously orientated poems.
As a matter of fact, out of the seven awards the were given to my poems this year only two mention God, and then only in passing.
John, normally I would respect anyone’s opposing opinions and/or criticisms, however I find it difficult offer the same courtesy here to you. I find your comments as void of merit and validity as the alias that you so appropriately chose to post it under. So, be a quitter and leave if you so choose, just keep in mind that no one ever changed, influenced, or even made the slightest difference to any venture by abandoning it.
Bob, that leaves you. Your railing accusations are so ludicrous that they don’t even deserve a rebuttal. But I will respond with a question. In your comment, you accused the staff at Lulu’s of choosing winners based on their hopes of choosing someone who would give it back to them via the winner choosing them as their publisher. Do you have any idea how absurd that sounds? Where is the logic in that pray tell? Why would anyone gamble their money solely on the off chance that they might get it back when it was wholly theirs to begin with?
Especially when it would leave them in the position of having to earn it back by publish someones work as a result, when they initially had no such obligation prior to awarding the money. That is as ridiculous a business strategy as making a defective product so that the customer will by another one.
You also insinuated that Lulu’s only chose “suckers and wannabes” to hopefully publish their work which you referred to as “cliched tripe”. I take it that what you were referring to, since I am the only grand prize winner in the history of Lulu’s, then therefore I am the wannabe sucker, and my work then becomes the tripe. I certainly don’t know what motivated that response, except to try to give merit to Johns comment. Both of your comments show many similar negative attributes, so many similarities in fact that I believe that you are in fact the same person.
You are not earning any brownie points with this attitude gentleman. You have angrily, and without merit or just provocation, accused Lulu’s staff, the judges, and myself of greed, favoritism, and being void of talent. Even if your arguments had credence, and you offer none, then it was lost in the company of you anger, along with your hurtful unfounded accusations that you abundantly hand out to everyone concerned.
Shame on you, shame on you both. You just don’t get it do you? It’s not the destination that’s imporant, it’s the journey that defines us. More specifically the way that we react to adversity while on that journey. And It seems to me that your reaction to this little bit of adversity that has presented itself to your journey has been piss poor at best.
I’m sorry if you take offense by my evaluation of your comments. But like you I also harbor an opinion all my own. And again, like you, I have the right to express it. And I have to call it like I see it.
In summation: It is perfectly understandable to experience disappointment in loosing a contest, and to make comments to that end publicly. However, it’s quiet a different type of beast to spout out this sort of slanderous and unfounded accusations supported only by your disappointment in your not winning, your anger derived from the same, and your wounded ego.
Bob, you declared that this site does not inspire creativity. You should hope that that statement was inaccurate, at least if you intend to enter any poems this year, because I’ve found another gear, and God willing, I fully intend
to raise the bar this year!
Since I find myself band standing at the moment, I would like to make a correction to a previous statement that I made in my earlier comment wherein I said ” These so called poets….” This comment was wholly inconsiderate to those authors who do possess talent, and I apologize to everyone that took offense, or felt slighted. What I meant to say was, ” Many of these so called poets…

Posted by Timothy I. Brumley on 5 February 2010 @ 4am

Well I certainly meant no disrespect to anyone and I am my own person that speaks my own mind, Bob is my real name and I have no idea who John Doe is. If you want examples of my opinion:

Spring = hope (wow never heard that one)
Summer = golden rays (where do you come up with this stuff)
Fall = multicolored hues (again your originality is amazing)

Raise the bar all you want for I would never waste my time posting here, take care and good luck.

Posted by Bob on 5 February 2010 @ 8am

Really? Oh what a wicked web we weave when it’s our intention to deceive! Then why are you responding to a request that I made specifically to John? I asked for no further opinions from you as they have already been presented quiet clearly. I did ask John for examples of his alleged superior candidates for the winning poem however. Oops!
But I’ll humor you for the sake of argument, and because Bob was my Dad’s Name. A name that I therefore am quiet familiar with. One that comes out and sounds the same way no matter which side of your face you say it from.
Contradictions within contradictions! Actually both your opening and closing remarks in that last statement look more like he alpha and omega of contradictions.
I believe that I’ve discovered the core root of this conflict, which in essence seems to be a complete lack of imagination on you behalf, a trait quintessential to both the enjoyment and the composition of good poetry.
You see, that’s my wellspring of information, or source from whence all “this stuff” originates. You really should try to obtain one sometimes, it does absolute wonders for poetry!

Posted by Timothy I. Brumley on 5 February 2010 @ 2pm

Little boys with backs all feathered out
Little boys, all, have to curse and shout.
Little boys all.

Posted by Kae on 6 February 2010 @ 7am

Ah yes but,

Litlle boys are the joys of little girls,
and little girls are the pearls of little boys.

Just think how dull it would be without us.

Posted by Timothy I. Brumley on 8 February 2010 @ 8pm

Congratulations Timothy Brumley! What an amazing poem!
You well deserve to be the yearly winner. I am going to continue working on my poems so that I may as well be inspired to express sentiments and feelings in the artistry of poetry and become once again a monthly winner and perhaps a yearly winner as well!
Happy New Year 2010!

Posted by Suzanne C. Goudreau on 15 February 2010 @ 1am

Mr Timothy I didn’t won’t you to think I didn’t respond to you but I had, Lulu felt it wasn’t warranted to post, Congrats on winning, I truely mean that. But I felt like Wow Who is this guy when I was reading you theis I mean post. What I said to myself after reading your responds was John be a good Christian. So I will. Mr Tim I will say two things good luck. Just because I didn’t like you winning means nothing. By the way I really don’t right Poetry I like to read good poetry, is that alright with you. Not everybody is going to like your Poem. Allot of People heard that type of poetry many times. I, again I want something that I never heard before something fresh. God Bless you and your Family. My name is John. All you really need to know is John. Good Luck.

Posted by john on 19 February 2010 @ 4am

Oh yeah I almost forgot Mr Tim. Good luck
I hope that made you smile. Again congrats on winning.

Posted by john on 19 February 2010 @ 4am

I’m not really sure how too enter your contest.I’ve been writing poems since i was a little girl.I would love to share a few of my favorites with everyone.I hope you all will enjoy them. EVE TEMPTED ADAM WITH AN APPLE,YOU TEMPTED ME WITH YOUR LOVE.THE APPLE WAS FORBIDDEN AND YET IT LINGERED JUST ABOVE.HOW SWEET AND DELICOUS,THAT APPLE MUST HAVE BEEN.BUT HOW COULD HE HAVE KNOWN THE PRICE HE’D PAY FOR GIVING IN.JUST LIKE THE APPLE,YOU LINGER JUST ABOVE,A FORBIDDEN FRUIT,MY FORBIDDEN LOVE.KNOWING YOUR FORBIDDEN MAKES ME DESIRE YOU EVEN MORE.BUT JUST LIKE THE APPLE,YOUR POISONED TO THE CORE.YOU ARE THE DEVIL IN THE DISGUISE OF A MAN.YOUR AN ENCHANTED ISLAND,BUILT UPON QUICKSAND.TO FALL FOR YOUR LOVE WOULD MEAN LIVING A LIFE OF SIN.FORBIDDEN FRUIT MAY BE SWEETER,BUT WHO GETS THE BITTER END. GINA FEAGIN MARSH

Posted by gina marsh on 24 February 2010 @ 4am

That was absolutely che bello as the italians would say. I would love to read more, that really touch me. I love this poem. You are a good poet. I love the structure of the poem. I would like to read more Please. Thank you for sharing Gina Feagin Marsh.

Posted by Sean L Sanders on 28 February 2010 @ 3am

i loved your poem very much. its really creative. Dont let people tear you down! i have a question. how do u get picked for poem of the day?

Posted by BreeBree99 on 4 March 2010 @ 3pm

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