GUEST POET

HONORARY COWPOKE
WINNERS & GUESTS

Current Guest

Previous Guests

Guidelines

Publication

Submissions Are Welcome From:

1. Any individual not engaged in a commercial enterprise involving the marketing of "Cowboy Poetry".
2. Amateur or wannabe cowboy poets who do not have a HomePage whereupon they can display their own works or, if having server allocated space, have not engaged someone to design or are not familiar enough with HyperText Markup Language (HTML) to design a personal web site.
   

Poetry Submission Procedure:

1. Email your entry to: CPFun WebMaster with "GP" (for Guest Poet) or "poetry submission" as the subject line. If you do not have an email account, don't worry; you are not excluded. Simply have a friend submit your entry for you using their valid email address as the subject line. Just be sure that your name appears in the body of the email message under your poem title. After all, you don't want your friend to get all the glory, do you?
2. CowPokin' Fun is a non-commercial web site. There is no entry fee charged for submission, no charge to you for HTML layout, and no fees or royalties paid. It's all free gratis, boys and girls. We do this because we're crazy.

Acceptable Format:

1. Our WebMaster can convert several different IBM compatible word processing program formats. However for best results, prior to sending, configure your email program for text, MIME, Quoted Printable.
2. If you email your submission as an attachment in other than plain text, or ASCII (MS-DOS format), be sure it is convertible by or has been saved as one of the following document formats:
   1. WordPad (Windows 3.x, 95/98 - *.doc )
   2. Notepad (Windows 3.x, 95/98 - *.txt )
   3. Word 2000 or lower (Microsoft Word - *.doc )
   4. WordPerfect 5.1 - 6.0 or lower (state WP version no. & file extension)
   5. TextPad ( *.txt or *.htm* )
   6. Works for Windows 4.5 or lower (Microsoft Works - *.wps )
   7. Windows Write (Windows 3.xx - *.wri )
   8. Rich Text Format ( *.RTF )
   9. Leading Edge 3.1a or lower ( *.doc - an older than dirt program that you've probably never even heard of)
3. If you use a word processor other than one of the above and aren't sure about how to go about converting it, or have no idea if it's compatible, email us. It never hurts to ask. Include the name of your word processing program and the version number.
4. We request that you don't use fancy fonts, unique (or sexy) layouts, or headers and footers in your documents. Our WebMaster (me!) must remove all of that cool, fancy formatting, often line by line, and hey, folks, I'm still learning all of this HTML stuff. I ain't that good at it yet.
5. Oh, yeah. I almost forgot. Please spell check your document before sending it to us. My spelling is worse than yours! If you don't have a spell checker...Oh, what the hay...send your poem in anyway. If I don't know what a word is supposed to be, I'll just use the SWAG^* method. After all, the entire purpose of the Guest Poet section is to provide a means to display works of those who otherwise would be unable to do so.
   

   * Scientific Wild Ass Guess

Lag Time:

1. We attempt to publish quarterly (assuming we have enough entries), and have an approximate 30 day lag time. That is, all entries received before the end of any quarterly term will be considered for publication the following term. So, if your submission was received on or after January 1, 1999 and before March 1, 1999, that poem would be judged in April and, if selected, would be posted approximately May first. It would remain on-line in the Honorary Cowpoke section until around July 30, 1999 (approximately 90 days).

Caution, Caveat & All That Legalese:

1. Protecting your authorship with copyright is up to you. I'd like to believe that all folks are honest, but let's face it. The World Wide Web (cyberworld) is just like the real world. There are always a few who...well, perhaps you've heard an old song my mama used to sing:
     Oh...Don't you believe it, a single word they say. This world is chucked full of liars, a new one is born everyday.
2. And so, folks, CowPokin' Fun and all who are affiliated assume no responsibility for your protection. If you're not concerned about that, or have a good lawyer, go for it. Send us what you got. We will include your personal copyright notice on your work. Be sure to provide the year of copyright or authorship, and the author's name exactly as you would like it recognized. Examples are the poems on this site, which all have (directly below the title) something similar to: copyright 1988 by Carol Tallman Jones (or Joe Young, or B. My Guest, etc.)
3. We will not accept any pornography or X-Rated material. Need I say more?
4. If you have specific western graphics or images which are copyright or royalty free that you'd like considered for inclusion on your poem layout page, you may send those as an email attachment. Those so chosen, at the sole discretion of the WebMaster, will undoubtedly be copied, stolen, or borrowed forever (like that last book you loaned) by anyone or everyone who thinks they are really cool...
   (including me!).
   

All that said, and I hope I didn't forget anything, if you still have questions, email us. An email link (mailbox graphic) can be found on nearly every page on this site. Simply click the image to send us mail. We do our best to answer every message, but do give us a few days to reply. We're old and sometimes rather slow.

TO ENTER NOW:

---

This page is updated whenever the mood strikes. Changes in our Guest Poet Submission Guidelines shall become effective immediately upon (and if ever) posted on this page.

Top of Page