Poetry.com/Howard Ely
I was named a member of the international society of poets- but had to choose between 3 option to pay for it- going as far as saying, pay for your own poetry

I entered a competiotion of poetry. I submitted a poem that, eventually, earned high awards, or so the compnay claimed. each award was- according to their idea- to be " earned in paying for it", in other words, if i wanted to see my poem in print, i would have to buy various gilded engravings, frmaed plates, books bound in leather etc; every single itemised thing was expensive and not in the least what I had in mind when entering the competition.

I was repeatedly lured alon with having to " vote for me", and call friends to log on a site and " vote for me"- according to the company, the more people voted for me, the more chances i had to win... which of course provd void.

As I didn't opt for chrystal vases or engravings or leather bound volumes (with my own work included), all csting extravagant amounts of money, I never got anywhere but more and more " offers2 to buy my own work (by applying for their heavily encoded, gold-encrusted and greed exhuming products, from books, to plaques, and recently even post-cards.. all to be payable with my credit/debit card; the ply was obvious to my schoolchildren: all they were after was commission in earnin from orders, ordes from peopl who actually alrady gave them their onw" work"; the as never any mention of this at the beginning when one entered a competition; all they said then was that one could win a prize, never that on had to finance that prize by purchasing items that one didn't ned or want)

This exchange had gone on for quite some time uring the yeR 2007 AND ONLY STOPPED when the" poetry.com" noticed i was not placing any orders to buy my own work back; I never ever gav the insitution permission to publush my work, yet they lured wiht my pome being printed " in the same book as other famous names, like Bill Clinton, etc" they never soped luring, and charmingly enveloping thier products as a necesity.

I think the entire scam had been a carefuly premeditated lure to innocent or naive writers ou there, who sincerely enjoy theirwork with words..

majda
weybridge
United Kingdom