Q: What is Shadow Poetry?

A: The heart of Shadow Poetry exists through our Community of Poets (member section), Message Board, and Publications. We have designed a web site for members as well as all amateur poets/writers to share their work, and to have it displayed on the web or published in print form. The web site and message board give everyone a chance to display some of their work for all to read. For more information about Shadow Poetry, click the About Us or Services link at the top of this page.


Q: How do I join?

A: To become a member of the Shadow Poetry Message Board, you will need to create a username and password before you are able to post and reply to other messages.

If you would like to display your work on the Shadow Poetry site, become a member! Please visit the "Member" section for registration details. There is a small yearly membership fee for this section.


Q: Who is a Member?

A: Shadow Poetry has two parts to its organization.

1) Message Board Members - Poets may create a username and password to participate on Shadow Poetry's Message Board. These members are free to read, post, and respond to poetry posted on a daily basis to many categories within this section. This service is free to members.

3) Member Poetry / Community of Poets - Poets may sign up for membership to post and display their personal poetry, bio, photographs, poetry collections, short stories, compete in a yearly chapbook competition, and more for a fee of $25.00, and a yearly renewal of $10.00. Upon paying for membership, the poet will create a username and password to access the members section to add poetry, create a profile page, enter the chapbook contest, send announcements, etc. This is a paying service.


Q: How do I enter the Shadow Poetry contests?

A: Shadow Poetry offers six poetry contest with combined winnings well over $2,000.00 cash, prizes, and publication. These contests require an entry fee. Please visit the Contest section to find out more about our web based poetry contests, official rules, fees, and prizes. The Little Bitty Poetry Competition, Rhyme Time Poetry Contest, Shadows Ink Poetry Contest, Seasonal Poetry Competition, Zen Garden Haiku Contest, and Shadow Poetry's Biannual Chapbook Competition. Other contests are hosted through the SP Quill Quarterly Magazine.


Q: How long will it take for my submitted material to appear on the Shadow Poetry site?

A: If you are a Community of Poets member and depending on how many submissions we have per day, your work should be ready for viewing with in 24 hours. Your submission will not appear automatically after sending it to Shadow Poetry. If you have submitted work with an invalid email address, in all CAPS, or material we feel is inappropriate, we reserve the right not to display your work.


Q: How do I remove my poetry from this site?

A: Send requests to: Shadow Poetry Webmaster to have your work removed. Please include your name and your email address. If you are a Community of Poets Member, there is a special form for poetry deletions and membership cancellation in the Member Login Section.


Q: My work has been removed? Where did it go?

A: Shadow Poetry reserves the right to remove any submitted material from its site in one or more of these seven cases: 1) Email address submitted by the poet/writer is invalid or is no longer an updated means of contacting the poet/writer. 2) Work submitted was not the original work of the author. 3) Subject manner of the material was questionable. 4) Harassment of another Shadow Poetry members via our site by means of message board or emailing rude or threatening letters in private. 5) Sending out any form of Spam to our members. 6) Membership was not renewed and fees not paid.


Q: May I use or reproduce the content on this site?

A: Material from this site may be used for personal and educational purposes only. Commercial use is strictly prohibited. If information, works, and/or examples are copied, printed, etc. from this web site, it/they may not be published, sold, or displayed in any form without strict written permission from Shadow Poetry and any authors that may be involved. When used for educational purposes, we ask that all poets and authors be given proper credit wherever they may be quoted or displayed and referenced back to this site. The Shadow Poetry web site may be added to any educational poetry database for student and teacher reference. For more in-depth information, please visit Shadow Poetry's Copyrights page.


Q: How do I obtain copyrights for my works?

A: Depending on how many works you wish to have copyrighted will depend on the route you may want to take in protecting your material. The Copyright Office will charge you $30.00 per poem or short story to copyright the work you have written. Many poets and writers do not have the kind of funds available to copyright each work individually. We suggest publishing your works within a collection (book) and copyrighting the collection as a whole. That way each work is protected, though not individually copyrighted. For more information, visit the US Copyright Office. You will find forms to print and fill out once you have decided upon the method that will work the best for you.


Q: How do I navigate the Shadow Poetry site?

A: Shadow Poetry uses three main navigation bars at the top and bottom of each page. The first navigation bar (Fig. #1) contains the seven main categories featured on the Shadow Poetry site: Home, Members, Resources, Chapbooks, Magazines, Contests, and Bookstore. To access these sections, simply press any one of these buttons or use the drop down menu (Fig #2) that is activated from each category when your mouse rolls over them. When one of the sections is activated, the button will turn a dark green.

Fig. #1

Fig. #2

The second navigation bar is dark green in appearance and features all the options (sub-categories) under one of the seven main categories. Simply click any page you wish to view on this sub-category bar. The link will turn orange, indicating you have accessed the section you wish to be in.

Occasionally, our sub-categories have so much information in them, we had to offer a third navigation bar. This bar will be a medium grey color showing all the options offered in the each sub-category. Simply click on any page you wish to read, and the link (or button) will turn a lighter shade of gray.

Q: Why won't many of your links work within the site?

A: Shadow Poetry displays quite a bit of its content and links to other sites on pop-up windows for easy viewing and printing. If you have a pop-up blocker activated on your computer, these links might not work for you. Simply disable your pop-up blocker program, and the Shadow Poetry links, poems, and other informative pages should load properly for you.


If your questions were not answered, please visit our "Contact" page. Any of the Shadow Poetry staff members will be happy to help you.