Changes to the WPF IBPC Selection Process -- PLEASE READ!

[M]

Dearest All,

We’ve decided to make a change to the way in which our IBPC selections are made every month. After 12 years of doing it the way we’ve been doing it, we thought some restructuring might be in order to open up and level out the playing field.

The way we have been doing it is by making our selections from the recognized poems in our Hall of Fame as chosen by Admin each week. Those honored with Poem of the Week (usually four to five poems a month) are whittled down to become our IBPC submissions monthly. While this has been successful, the choices are made solely by WPF Administrators, and whether conscious or not, reflect only Admin’s poetic tastes and preferences. We thought it was time to get the membership more involved.

We have a forum here called “Nominations for Poem of the Week/Honorable Mention.” We’re going to change that to “Nominations for IBPC Submission,” and have a membership-driven IBPC selection process.

What this means is that YOU, the members, will be the driving force behind our IBPC submissions. Here’s how it’s going to work:

1. Nominate poems posted here at Wild that you feel would make good IBPC submissions. Make that nomination in the “Nominations for IBPC Submission” Forum. Instructions can be found in that forum detailing how to nominate.

2. Leave a note for the author of the poem alerting him/her to your nomination in the original thread in Creative Visualization that contains the poem.

3. You may nominate as many poems as you wish each month and you may nominate them at any time during the month.

4. You may also nominate one (1) of your own poems monthly. Choose wisely.

5. If you have been nominated by another member or you have nominated one of your own poems, please visit the nomination thread in the “Nominations for IBPC Submission” Forum and post a note that gives us your permission to submit that poem into the IBPC.

If your poem has been nominated by another member, but you prefer NOT to have it submitted into the IBPC monthly contest for any reason, don’t feel pressured to give permission. Simply state that you would prefer NOT to submit. We realize many of our members have plans to submit their poems to other contests/journals or are nominated by other IBPC participating forums. And we fully support your choices.

And that’s it. WPF Administration will read all the nominated poems in the last week of every month, and choose two (2)* to be submitted into the IBPC. If no poems are nominated in any particular month, no submissions into the IBPC will be made for that month. If the author has not granted permission in the nomination thread, we’ll make every attempt to contact him/her, but if we receive no response by the deadline, we’ll move on to another choice.

We will still have Poem of the Week and Honorable Mentions here at WPF, but this will become our own in-house recognition program. The poems recognized under that designation may or may not be candidates for IBPC submission depending on whether other members or their own authors nominate them.

Any questions regarding this new IBPC selection procedure can be sent to us at adminwpf@wildpoetryforum.com.

Since we’re nearly mid-way through June at this point, this new selection procedure will become effective starting with the month of July and continuing every month thereafter. You may still nominate poems for the rest of this month, though, and we’ll take them into consideration when we make our Poem of the Week/Honorable and IBPC submission selections for June.

We hope you will enjoy the broader level of involvement this new IBPC selection procedure will offer you, and we hope you will participate. Our thanks to all!

Love,
M & s

* UPDATE: As of May 2013, each IBPC-member forum will again be permitted to enter up to three (3) poems each month into the competition.