[Jayne Osborn]

"No entrant may win more than one prize"

Is there a good reason for this rule? If there is, I can't see it; the poems are judged on merit, after all.

If you submitted five poems, say, to a competition and the judge just happened to like two of them enough to give them a place, why shouldn't you be awarded 1st and 2nd prizes, or 2nd and 3rd if another poem was rated higher, or even 1st and 3rd?

If the above rule is followed, the judge is not being true to his or her original decision. After discovering the name of the author they would then presumably have to demote one of the poems in favour of one they liked less.

(When John Whitworth and I judged a comp together for two years we didn't include that rule... and someone did win two prizes one year, if my memory serves me correctly.)

Jayne