Daily Poem Rules

What is this page? This is a list of all of the Daily Poem rules and a (brief) explanation for why they are enforced. This is not a FAQ page. You can find frequently asked questions, such as ‘how do I edit the Daily Poem?’ on the Daily Poem FAQ.

Why do we have rules in the first place? For various reasons. It makes it possible for us to do our job.
If everybody follows the rules, the page looks nice and uniform, saving us the trouble of editing your works to fit Main Street guidelines. It's easier to read if people just want to read and no poem is 'better' than the other because of formatting... Things like that. Just keep it uniform. It's all we ask.

It should probably be noted for record's sake that Daily Poem Bosses have the final say in subjective matters. If we say a poem isn't allowed and you cannot come with reasonable arguments to support a different view - it's not allowed.



Submissions must be original. If the poem isn't 100% your work, it's not allowed. Collaborated poems are against our rules.

Plagiarism is a criminal offence. Do not submit works that are not 100% your creation. You do not have the right to claim someone else's work as your own. You do not have the right to alter someone else's work and call it your own.
Yes, that means you cannot take one of those chain mail poems, change a few words and claim it as your work. It's not. To illustrate this with a quote by [Rondel]:
"Copyright applies to all original creations, from the moment they are created until they're old enough (90+ years) to become public domain; nobody has the right to re-write another person's creation and claim it as their own, despite the fact that the alterations were their own work. It's like claiming you own someone's car, because (unasked) you broke into it, changed one of the doors for one you bought at a wrecking yard, and adjusted the timing. For more information (not to toot my own horn), it might be worth looking at my own wikis on Copyright and Intellectual Property."

Some people enjoy writing fanworks of things they love. That's wonderful, but you can't submit your fan poetry to the Daily Poem. Some writers and artists have strict rules about this. You can only submit such poetry if the piece you're writing about is public domain, because the copyright has expired.


Submissions must be English.

This is because the majority of people know English. Not many members can understand, for example, Frisian or German. It more or less beats the point of featuring a poem that everyone can enjoy.

Please keep in mind that the whole poem must be English. We understand that some people will use a foreign language for various reasons, but we have to decline them on the grounds that it's not English. If we can't read it - we won't feature it. If we can read and it's not English - we won't feature it.

It's highly unfair to say 'submissions in English and these few selective languages we happen to speak'. Submissions in English so everyone can (relatively) understand them.


Submissions containing the following are not allowed: excessive violence, adult material, offensive and/or hateful materials and any other material that the Council deems unsuitable.

It’s just a part of the general rules of Elftown. It's an all-age site, don't post what you wouldn't classify as such.
And for the record, artistic nudity and graphic rape are not comparable. Don't even try.


Submissions must be written in proper English. While mistakes are natural and to be expected, there are boundaries.

Poetic freedom does not give you the right to ignore ALL grammatical and spelling rules. A lot of our members aren’t native speakers. One of the Daily Poem Bosses isn't a native speaker of English. We cannot expect our members to write perfect English. However, netspeak or simply atrocious grammar and/or spelling will not be tolerated.
Remember that people are going to read your poem. There are many definitions of what makes a good poem. Ours doesn’t include crappy English.

Note that this means that writing 'i' instead of 'I' WILL get your poem removed. That's not an error, that is laziness. If you care so little about your poem, we see no reason to feature it.


Submissions must follow the Daily Poem Format.

A lot of people will read over this or think it doesn't matter. It does matter. Mistake the Daily Poem Format and your poem is removed without pardon. You are responsible for your own works. That includes reading submission rules.

The Daily Poem Format helps us in running the Daily Poem efficiently. It makes the page look neater and eases our job of seeing where one poem ends and another begins.


Maximum length is 50 lines for the Daily Poem. It used to be shorter, but this was a compromise made in exchange for not re-instating XXL Daily Poem.

That is, maximum length without counting blank lines in between verses. Again this is for efficiency.


You are limited to four (4) submissions per person at any given time.

This is because some people cannot use their common sense and post 20+ poems on the Daily Poem. This costs a lot of space and deprives others of the chance to post.

You can, of course, add new poetry if you remove others or if your work is moved to the feature queue. But the total on the Daily Poem page may not exceed a total of four.


Conversations should be taken off the Daily Poem comments.

We use the comment section for deletion notifications, so while a bit of bantering isn't too bad, a full-fling conversation pushes our notifications off the page.


You are responsible for the works you post, not the Daily Poem Bosses.

That means that if the Daily Poem Bosses remove your poem and you haven't made a back-up, you can't go blaming it on us. We aren't responsible for what you post or whether you back it up.



Please keep in mind that these rules may change 'without notice'. We will make a notice in the comment section. If it gets pushed off the page, it will. So please either watch this page or view it periodically for changes.



Questions regarding our rules? Comments? Suggestions? Please use the comment section for them!
Questions regarding the Daily Poem itself? Please refer to the Daily Poem FAQ to see if your question has been asked already.



Go or return to:
-The wiki-index
-The Daily Poem FAQ
-The Daily Poem
-The Daily Poem Format
-The Daily Poets' Choice
-The list of Daily Poets
-The list of Master Poets
-The Poets meeting point
-The help index