James brought me the mail today, and after going thru endless ads and junk, I got this letter from Creative Communication, a Student Writing Contest Headquarters for a poem written by Lizzy.

At first, I thought, WOW this is wicked cool, they want to publish one of her poems!   That’s great.   They had us do the proofreading thing, and said that there’s nothing to buy, just submit the proof and she’d be a published poet.   Pretty cool… but I though, I’d like to have a copy for her, so I’d buy a book – it’s like $22, no big whip…

So, I did a little digging and found that this company is a bit on the shady side, not entirely shady, but just a bid shady… they accept nearly 50% of all the poems the receive.   Hmmm… that’s ALOT of poems.   And what does that say to the quality of poems they accept?   Or, do they really accept ALL of them in hopes of people wanting a copy of the book for vanity purposes?   I don’t really know, but they’re making a crapload of money it seems.

One article I found out there was by a school that claimed that 43 of their second graders were accepted by this same outfit… 43?   That’s TWO FULL classes of kids.   If it’s like our school, that’s one-half of the second graders.   Certainly they aren’t all that good, are they?

So, I’m on the fence… I think I’ll submit her poem to be published, but I might forgo the purchase… am I crazy?

Here’s the poem:

Heartbeat Time
by Elizabeth Mastrio. Grade 5

Time goes by and the feathers fall
Nothing’s lost at all
As the clock talks to one through twelve,
I wait, watch, and listen
The only thing that moves,
Is feathers and the clock
Tick tock goes the little clock
Tick tock tick tock
The noise is the heartbeat of the clock
The feathers fade and time
Slips ever so slowly,
Nevertheless,
Time goes by and feathers fall.