RhymeZone 2021 Poetry Contest

Write a short poem about the theme:

COVID‑19 Vaccination

...and post it before the end of the day on April 11, 2021. Your poem can touch on topics such as how you feel about getting the vaccine; what our post-COVID future looks like; how the vaccines work; or more. Be creative!

Submit by writing your entry on Twitter or emailing it to us.
(Emailed entries may be reposted anonymously on our website or Twitter account.)

In mid-April (National Poetry Month in the U.S.) we'll choose the ones we like best and award three winners $500 USD each and five honorable mentions $100 USD each.

Continuing our tradition, we'll also donate $100 USD to a registered public health or social justice non-profit organization of the writer's choice, for each winner and honorable mention.

We'll favor poems that show creativity, craftsmanship, and adherence to the theme. In the most recent contests we've required that the entry be in rhymed couplet form, and that's still an option, but for this special 2021 contest we'll accept any form.

Why have we chosen "COVID-19 vaccination" as a theme?
We've revived the contest after 3 years of dormancy so that we can encourage people to share their feelings and perspectives in this anxious time. We would like to help researchers find innovative new ways to communicate how important vaccines are to public health, and give a forum for people to understand each other's hopes, concerns and hesitations about this topic.

Whether or not you enter the contest, we encourage you to read up on the COVID-19 vaccines from official sources (such as the CDC in the U.S.) if you haven't already.

Submit by writing your entry on Twitter or emailing it to us.
(Emailed entries may be reposted anonymously on our website or Twitter account.)

New: Read some of the poems submitted so far!

Past couplet contest themes and winners:
Jun 2018	TODDLERS	@JanieGouge
Jan 2018	SNOW	@ckimani371
Dec 2017	PROCRASTINATION	@mchlbs
Nov 2017	SUPERHEROES	@peterjcasey
Oct 2017	BOOKS	@kerryrawli and @vkatariya
Sep 2017	PLANETS	@futzle
Aug 2017	TURTLES	@224bees

OFFICIAL CONTEST RULES for the RhymeZone Couplet Contest

SPONSORSHIP

This couplet contest (the “Contest”) is sponsored by Datamuse Corp, Bluffton SC, 29910 USA (the “Sponsor”).

ELIGIBILITY

The Contest is open to all legal residents of the United States, Canada, the UK, Ireland, Australia, and India, except for the province of Quebec and where prohibited by law. Applicants must be 18 years of age at the time of entry. A parent or legal guardian above the age of 18 may enter on behalf of a child under 18.
Employees of the Sponsor, their family members, the contest judges, and persons living in the same household as these persons are not eligible.
No purchase is necessary, and no personal information is collected from entrants. Finalists may be asked to discuss their work by email to help us verify the authenticity of the work. Winners may be asked for identification information including full name, tax ID, and an address to which to send their prize, and for (optional) biographical information to share on the RhymeZone.com website.
Void where prohibited by law. The Contest is governed by U.S. law and is subject to all applicable federal, state, provincial, and local laws and regulations.
Submissions must meet the guidelines stated below (see “SUBMISSION GUIDELINES”)
An applicant may submit multiple entries throughout the contest period, as long as (1) each entry is an original work that meets all of the submission guidelines, (2) the applicant uses the same Twitter or email account for each entry. Judges reserve the right to limit prizes to at most one prize per individual applicant.
No prize will be awarded to applicants who do not meet the eligibility requirements.

TIMING

The Contest ends at 11:59:59 pm U.S. Eastern Time on the deadline day listed above. Entries submitted after this time are not eligible. Incomplete submissions or submissions posted outside the contest entry period will not be considered.

AGREEMENT TO OFFICIAL RULES

Participation in the Contest constitutes applicant’s full and unconditional agreement to and acceptance of these Official Rules. By entering the Contest, applicant warrants that the submission is an original work, has not been previously published or won any award, and that applicant is aware of no conflicting rights in the submission including but not limited to copyright or other intellectual property right as further identified below in the section entitled “No Infringement.” Applicants agree that Sponsor, its affiliates, parents, subsidiaries, agents or contractors and their employees, officers and directors shall not be liable for injury, loss or damage of any kind resulting from participating in this Contest.

ORIGINALITY; NO INFRINGEMENT

All submissions must be the original work of the applicant. All applicants represent, state, and agree that their Contest submission will not infringe upon the intellectual property rights of any third party, including by way of example and not by limitation, any copyright, trademark or patent rights belonging to any third party. Plagiarism in any form will result in disqualification.

USE OF SUBMISSIONS

All submissions, including the winning submissions, remain the property of the applicant before and after the Contest. Sponsor claims no ownership of the applicant's work. We will announce the winners on the RhymeZone Twitter account and by linking to the winning tweet from this page.

PRIZES

Sponsor will choose, at its discretion, three winners and five honorable mentions from the submissions. Sponsor will grant $500 USD to each winner of the contest and $100 USD to each honorable mention. Additional non-monetary prizes may be given to other exceptional applicants.
Any taxes due on the prizes awarded are the sole responsibility of the Winner and/or his or her parent or guardian.
Payment of awards will be contingent upon receipt of verification that the applicant meets all of the eligibility requirements.
All prizes are awarded without regard to race, sex, sexual orientation, religion, age, or national origin.

JUDGING CRITERIA

The Winner will be selected on the basis of its originality, humor, rhyme, meter, and adherence to the Couplet Contest theme. The Winners and Honorable Mentions will be selected at the sole discretion of judges employed by the Sponsor, and their decisions are final.

Note: This is not a popularity contest! While the Contest judges will consider the Twitter activity associated with each entry (such as the number of hearts, retweets, and replies), the Judges will ultimately use their collective judgment to decide on the winners of the Contest.

NOTIFICATION OF WINNERS

The Winners will be notified by Twitter direct message or email, and announced on RhymeZone.com, within two weeks of the contest deadline.

GENERAL TERMS AND CONDITIONS

Winning is contingent upon fulfilling all requirements of these Official Rules and Sponsor's decisions as to the administration of the Contest and prize awards are final. Sponsor will notify the potential Winner within two weeks of the contest deadline. In the event that an applicant’s Twitter handle changes during this time, it is the applicant's responsibility to notify Sponsor of such change. In the event that any prize notification is undeliverable, Sponsor is unable to contact a potential winner, or response to a prize notification is not received within seven (7) days of its issuance, the prize may be forfeited. Where a prize is forfeited, the applicant with the next best submission in accordance with the Judging Criteria will be chosen as an alternate Winner.

Because this is a Contest of skill, the odds of winning depend upon the quality and eligibility of the submissions received, as well as the number of entrants. Sponsor reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to cancel, modify or suspend the Contest should fraud, technical failures, or any other factors beyond the reasonable control of Sponsor impair the integrity of the Contest, as determined by Sponsor in its sole discretion. By entering the contest, entrant agrees to release and hold harmless sponsor, its parent, subsidiaries and affiliated companies, officers, directors, employees and agents from and against any and all claims, causes of action and/or liability for any injuries, illness or death, loss or damage of any kind arising from or in connection with participation in and/or entry into the Contest or receipt or possession, use or misuse of any prize or element thereof. Sponsor, its respective affiliates, parents, subsidiaries, agents and employees are not responsible for late, lost, illegible, incomplete, stolen, misdirected, illegitimate, or impermissible submissions or mail; postage due mail; or any other error whether human, mechanical or electronic.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

Submissions may be posted on Twitter—either in a single tweet, or in several tweets (one tweet per stanza preferred). It must be understandable to speakers of English. Those without a Twitter account may email the poem to us at contest2021@rhymezone.com. If you send email, kindly put the poem in plain text in the body of the email, unless the formatting is essential, in which case you may send a PDF or image file attachment. We reserve the right to repost emailed entries to Twitter or to our website (without the author name) so that they can gather feedback from the public during the contest period, but we may not do so for all emailed entries.
An entry is more likely to win if it shows creativity, craftsmanship, and adherence to the current theme. It need not rhyme, nor does it have to include the theme words explicitly.
Please keep entries to fewer than 100 lines.

HOW TO ENTER

Entries must either be posted on Twitter or emailed to us. If you choose to post to Twitter, your message should include an "@" mention of our Twitter handle, @RhymeZoneCom, or be a reply to the tweet announcing the contest, so that we can recognize it as a contest entry. Click here to write such an entry.

Those without a Twitter account may email the poem to us at contest2021@rhymezone.com. We reserve the right to repost emailed entries to Twitter (without the author name) so that they can gather feedback from the public during the contest period, but we may not do so for all emailed entries.

Questions?

Ask us through this feedback form.