My 12 year old has a friend of the same age that entered one of those “poetry contests” on poetry.com. Well, of course, she has been notified that her poem is one of the “finalists” and will be “published” in a book that she has been given the opportunity to buy for discounted price of just $30 (whatta bahgain!).
She and her mother think this is all genuine, and are very excited. Her mom has been proudly spreading the news to everyone she knows.
Now I’m faced with a dilemma. Do I tell them this is all a scam? I know it would dissapoint them both very much, but I hate to see people taken advantage of. Any advice guys?
If you can find a trustworthy citation, give it to them.
Otherwise, if you have done your explaining and they are still unwilling to listen, hey, it’s only $30.00, they’ll get their book (presumably) and learn from the experience.
Do watch out for the later part of the scam where the publisher will ask for additional ‘funding’ from them to produce a better product with wider distribution. If they are convinced this remains a good deal, then they are beyond your assistance.
Damn, what an unenviable situation. My only suggestion would be to hunt up some articles about similar offers on the web and pass them on without too much comment; it’ll be less awkward if the news comes from some well-documented source instead of directly from you. Maybe you could soften the blow by pointing them toward some legitimate contests the girl could enter (IIRC, Cricket magazine has a monthly creative writing contest for kids).
I have to break the news to at least one student every semester. I might not even do it, except that for most of them, thirty dollars is a lot of money. Usually I congratulate them and then caution them to check poetry.com’s reputation, since I’ve heard that some places… and they wouldn’t want to give money, etc. Then I encourage them to submit it to the school newspaper or other legit sources.
I wouldn’t say a word. It isn’t my business. I even kept my mouth shut when my own sister was bragging about her grandson being a published poet (in the same sort of scam).
Yep-tell the mother. Tell her you feel bad to be the one to break it to her, but you don’t want her to be hurt. Also, hunt up sites about poetry.com in case she accuses you of lying.
Just out of curiosity, Lucretia, is there any chance that the mother could come back and accuse you of being jealous and trying to “take away” her daughter’s “achievement”? If this woman is attached to her daughter to the point where she cannot and does not tolerate any less-than-lauding thought in the girl’s general direction, this situation is made more difficult indeed.
Quick question for you, though: to what extent would $30 break the bank for them?
I was going to suggest keeping your mouth shut for the very reasons iampunha mentions.
I am very cynical and skeptical, plus very well-read, on and off the internet. Therefore, I am almost ALWAYS aware somthing is a scam long before any of my friends and acquaintances have ever even heard of the “opportunity”, urban legend, whatever. Does no good to point out the obvious, though. It is often perceived as something else - jealousy or my ignorance, usually. I have also always found it useless to come up with reputable cites to back myself up - they are always either countered with equally ahem “reputable” cites or are dismissed as having “ulterior motives” or some such.
People believe what they want to believe, and your attempts to educate them will not be welcomed.
Keep your mouth shut and let them believe their daughter is really on the path to becoming the next poet laureate.
Well, how do you think she’ll feel when they shell out for the book which turns out to be a badly xeroxed piece of crap? If she even recieves it at all-some people never even got the book, but couldn’t get a refund!
Tell her to do an experiment-submit a really shitty poem, possibly bashing poetry.com And then see if they “Select” your poem to “win.”
Seriously, it’s a huge scam-it’s been on 20/20, and I believe it’s been investigated by the FBI at one point.
Guin, it is possible that they will believe it to be not crap but an objet d’art. One person’s poetry is another person’s shredded paper for the hamster cage;)
I submitted a poem to poetry.com once. The first tip-off I got was that it had to be 20 lines total. The second was that the final line of my poem had originally been two lines (I had to make it all one line to fit in the guidelines), and like half the symbolism in the poem was lost with the final line as was, instead of as it had been before, and this was a poem I wrote in five minutes.
I am not a five-minute poet.
I figured out, for sure, that it was a scam when they wanted to sell a book, including MY OWN POEM, to me. Sorry, folks, I ain’t paying to see my own mangled poetry along with other random people’s. If I’m gonna be in a book, I’m damn well getting at least one copy free.
My sister-in-law fell for this. Sent in her kid’s “pome” and was THRILLED to see that her daughter was one of the 384,827,461 finalists whose poems all ended up in a book the size of a tombstone. All visitors to her house must now be subjected to THE BOOK and are expected to respond with appropriate gushes.
I did not enlighten SIL; she would only have said that I was being spiteful or envious or snobbish or shallow. Sad to say, I just gushed over THE BOOK, the quicker to get it out of my sight.
To be fair, she did receive the thing she paid for and has obviously gotten far more than thirty dollars’ worth of pleasure out of it. So who am I to spoil things?
Thanks for the input, guys, and thanks especially, Guinastasia, for the links. Right now I’m not sure what I’m going to do. I’m vacillating between the two viewpoints here.
On the one hand, the mom and I are not especially close, or even friends, really. (Not that we dislike each other, we just never run into each other except when transporting our children to each others houses) It might very well be that she would think I was jealous and trying to rain on her daughter’s parade, and I’d hate to have that then poison the friendship between her daughter and mine.
I do know , however, that she has a tendency to be very critical of her daughter, and that this pride she has now is a fairly rare phenomenon. One of the things the daughter said to me last night, when she was telling me about this, was “Finally my mom thinks I did something right!” Sigh.
punha, as far as I know, $30 would not really break the bank for them. They live in a comfortable middle class neighborhood in their own home.
However, suppose they buy into this whole thing, including possibly some of the later “opportunities”? If it was me, I would really want someone to tell me it was all a scam. And suppose they eventually run into someone else who tells them the truth about the whole thing, after they’ve shelled out for the “book” and who knows what else? That would, I imagine, be fairly traumatic for everyone as well.
Plus, just the whole concept of letting the scumbags at Poetry.com get away with what they are doing just galls me. I just don’t know.
If the mother, as you say, is very critical, perhaps you can inform the daughter directly? Tell her that her poem is wonderful (even if it’s not), but that it’s a big scam, and you don’t want to see her get hurt.
Hunt up several legitimate contests and print out the rules and application forms. Enthusiastically give these to the Proud Mom telling her that “Prodigy Kid should try these ones too! Because they have cash rewards/scholarships!” Be optimistic that Prodigy Kid can go on to conquer all sorts of legit competitions that have great prizes.
As you’re being all enthusiastic abouthe kid’s talent, and are giving her the contest info, remid her to look into each of them very carefully, because there are also a lot of scams out there. And give her the kind scam info like in Guin’s links.
Your being “very helpful, enthusiastic, and proactive.” You do not need tell them that the “poetry.com” thing is a scam because you don’t want to make them feel foolish for being had when it’s $30, but the scam-info you give them along with the good legit contests should let them figure it out on their own. That way they know what’s going on but they save face (and hopefully additional poetry.com scamage) and can enter some honest competitions.
Give them some good leads so they can continue to feel good and hopeful.
Would it be worth ruining this? I’m all for fighting ignorance but in this case it seems like the biggest impact would be a negative one on this girl’s self-esteem.