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MOVE ME POETRY BATTLE 

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We give you a prompt on Wednesday.

On Friday, you battle!

After years of hosting poetry battles on Twitter, we've steadily collected the most supportive writing community around. Our Movers spread kindness and love, providing a nurturing environment for writers to grow and develop their skills.

                                       

Every Wednesday we supply you with a prompt and on Friday, you supply us with a gorgeous, moving poem. While you comment and like your fellow battler's work, we,   along with some of your peers, will scour the entries to find ones we'd like to highlight for that week. The idea is to eventually highlight each participant's work at least once a year.

Need further convincing? Alright then. Have we mentioned that we will respond to as many entries as we can with a short bit of feedback? Whether in video form or a simple reply, we will make sure you know exactly what we thought of your poem, which we think is critical for any writer's development. We pay special attention to those poets and entries who don't have a lot of feedback already, as well as newcomers to the MMP community who are still finding their way. 

Carefully read the guidelines below, then when you're ready, click the link at the bottom of the page or find us on Twitter to get involved! We're dying to see what you have in store for us, but remember...

Don't just tell me, Move Me!

  • Are there any other important rules I need to know about #MMPoetryBattle?
    Some Additional Notes Some important legal stuff we have to mention because making a safe space for poets and creatives is important to us!! ​ If an image is used in conjunction with your poem, be sure to give the artist credit. Exceptions are if it's a common image or your own. Move Me Poetry is not responsible for any trademark or copyright infringements so do your due diligence. Please make sure your poem is legible. If you have a private account, please note that our judges or participants might not be able to see your work. Poems must be below the official tweet that announces the start of the battle; tweets placed elsewhere will not be considered an entry. ​ Entries must be unpublished (either in print or online, including social media), in the English language, and of your own work. Any evidence to the contrary will result in immediate disqualification. Translations are accepted so long as they are original. ​ If your piece has won a competition or prize in the past, it is ineligible. However, if you submitted your poem and it did not win, even if it was placed (2nd, 3rd, etc) it is deemed eligible so long as it follows the guidelines above. ​ One person may submit up to three poems for consideration, should they follow the guidelines above. If you submit more than three poems, only the first three will be considered entries, including poems submitted from an individual with multiple accounts.
  • How does #MMPoetryBattle short week work?
    Calendar weeks 1 & 2 are Short Weeks: This means your poem must be: Your poem must stay within the 280 character original tweet limit (this means we should be able to read your whole poem without hitting the "More" button!). Be about that week's prompt (you can use or allude to the word), Must be a response/reply to the official Poetry Battle start tweet (the pinned tweet declaring that the battle has started), And must include the #MMPoetryBattle hashtag (you can quote RT with #MMPoetryBattle if you've used all 280 characters for your poem. And if you're lucky enough to have access to 4k tweets then feel free to include them under your 280 character poem). This is important because Twitter jumps you back to the original tweet when we reply to your reply, so we can sometimes miss an entry with all that scrolling. But that doesn't happen when you search the hashtag so we always do that!! You are welcome to add an image to go with your poem - but it is for artistic purposes only and not required.
  • How does #MMPKickabout week work?
    Calendar week 4 is Kickabout week: Kickabout week is all about spoken word poetry, but with one little twist. There is no Battle this week and instead we ask our amazing community to scour our past Battle threads and pick one (or more) poems that really, really moved them. Then send us a video of you reading that poem out loud and tag your post with #MMPKickabout!! You can record the video right in Twitter (remember the 2:20 minute limit), record it on your phone and upload directly to Twitter, or upload your video to YouTube and tweet the link. Some people record a Facetime style video of themselves doing the reading, others film scenery while speaking in the background and some people combine an audio clip with a slideshow type video. What your video looks like is entirely up to you because it's the audio that matters!!
  • What else do I need to know about #MMPoetryBattle?
    Disqualification We disqualify plagiarized entries, entries that are over the predetermined limit or contain language that could be deemed hateful, discriminatory, or abusive. Entries proven to have won a competition or previously published will also be disqualified. ​ Length Entries must be contained in one tweet and include the obligatory #MMPoetryBattle hashtag. If you don't have space for the hashtag in your tweet, simply retweet your poem with the hashtag. See above for details. ​ Copyright Worldwide copyright of each entry remains with the author, but Move Me Poetry has unrestricted rights to publish and share the winning and highly commended poems across all platforms, including (but not limited to) the Move Me Poetry website, social media sites, and YouTube channel. ​ Results Selected poems will be highlighted on Twitter the following Monday and published to Move Me on Medium.
  • When does #MMPoetryBattle happen?
    The prompt will be announced Wednesday at 08:00 am CST, and the battle will start the following Friday at 8 am CST. Every Poetry Battle is hosted on Twitter, any submissions put through on other platforms will not be considered an entry. To make sure that we have time to put together the highlights for Monday - there is a 24 hour time limit for Battle submissions (until 8am CS on Saturday - that means GMT -5 for people who don't know American time zones!!). But you have a whole three days to write something so plenty of time!
  • How does #MMPoetryBattle long week work?
    Calendar week 3 is Long Week: This means that we allow you to cheat a little to get around Twitter's 280 character limit. But: Your poem must still be a single tweet - which means you can use text combined with an image (check our feed for examples!) or you can submit your entry as a Twitter video (these are 2:20 long - so you have a lot of space to work with!), Be about that week's prompt (can use or allude to the word), Must be a response (reply) to the official Poetry Battle start tweet (the pinned tweet declaring the start of the battle) And the #MMPoetryBattle hashtag MUST be included in the text that your image is attached to (You can use threaded tweets or replying to your own tweet to add the cute story about your poem!).

READY TO BATTLE?

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