Yes, Prof. P, I am glad I entered. I even still like my poem (except completer). On first reading all the poems I thought Elendil’s Heir was going to win – again – for sure. Then, I actually led in the voting for a few days, which was very exciting. And at last the winner was as predicted and well deserved. One of my friends came in to read and the only thing he could say about “Gettysburg” was that it certainly didn’t sound as if it were an hour’s work. This is true, but then I am sure the theme is something the poet had been mulling for a while. As was mine. Anyway, all in all, great fun, and again, big round of applause for the Ministre!
Many thanks to all, and especially to Le Ministre, for his hard work in promoting and running these sweatshops. I always enjoy them. kayT, yes, I had indeed been thinking about Gettysburg a lot recently, due to the sesquicentennial. I’ve been to the battlefield three times in the last decade or so, and the poem seemed to come to me in bits and pieces from my subconscious mind. Even now I see a lot I’d want to change about it, but it will have to do.
Well, I have been mulling the idea of memory for a while and when I saw the three words, I thought: present YES, passing YES, completer??? Oh well, two out of three ain’t bad.
Have any of you other poets been published anywhere? And do you intend to submit the current one for publication?
I’m sure some of the others are. Jumping the gun quite a bit, I’ll note that BlazeVox has five of my poems in their “good pile,” whatever that means exactly. I’ll know more in a couple of months. 
Yes and no. Most literary journals require the piece to be previously unpublished. Unfortunately, posting it on the SDMB or anywhere else publicly available on the internet, even your own blog, counts.
Congrats, Elendil!
Thanks. No plans to publish. My sister is a pretty talented poet and has vanity-published two collections of her work.
Congrats Elendil’s Heir!
Great job, and the subject was great - Gettysburg!
If I had tried that, it would have sounded like I was writing about Estelle Getty’s 'Burb.
And allow me to also thank** Le Ministre** for his stellar work and efforts again in putting on these contests! Looking forward to the Short Story Contest in August!
My poetry resume - I’ve been published in the three most recent issues of ‘Teemings’, the e-zine of the SDMB (I keep thinking it would be awfully fun to revive ‘Teemings’…), and my poem ‘Fugue’ was both printed in the program and read at the Windermere String Quartet’s ‘The Art of the Fugal Finale’ concert this year.
I frequently read at the open mic portion of the Art Bar Poetry Series, and I read my own poetry (and the poetry of others) as part of my own music recitals. (Rather than the traditional 75 - 90 minutes of song with piano accompaniment, I really enjoy making the pianist play at least one solo number and I encourage them to read a poem. I’ll sing, play at least one set of self-accompanied songs with guitar, possibly play a solo guitar piece, and read as much poetry as I can get away with.)
I may see about self-publishing chapbooks further on up the road - I feel like I’m still finding my voice, poetically speaking. In looking into e-publishing, I haven’t found anything that allows the visual format to be preserved when the reader changes the font size. All that work formatting the line endings to precisely reflect my wishes, and it goes out the window to look like bad prose.
For me, the great benefit is that running these contests is what has got me back into writing both poetry and short fiction after many years of inactivity. I’m very grateful for all of your kind wishes, and I can only say that I hope you derive as much pleasure from participating and reading as I derive from running them.