OMF Poetry and Art Slam contest 'Hope and Heart for ME/CFS' January 2019

So many talented people in S4ME- @Trish what a powerful piece of writing. When writing about ME it has to be REAL, and real is not a fluffy meme for most of us.

Really impressive @Hell..hath..no..fury... you put how I feel exactly into words ( and in 10 minutes!!).

You are both really talented.

Not impressed with the fact they want full publishing rights etc. seems very exploitative to me.

 

Thank you @hellytheelephant mine really doesn’t count lol, i wrote it in the bath on my phone at midnight; literally wrote, copied and pasted.

I’ve been thinking of doing one to submit but it’ll probably not happen

 

I’d be tempted to do some art for this but I’m not comfortable with handing anything over to the OMF like that. Plus I wouldn’t be cheering anyone up with what I’d be painting.......

 

Yes! That sounds like a good idea.

I am not artistic, but I have to agree that wanting exclusive rights seems a little greedy.

 

I contacted Marilyn at OMF to let her know the concerns. This was her reply

Yes. We have heard the concern loudly. I appreciate your reaching out trying to help. We are consulting and will be modifying the language. The challenge is for the winning poems being converted into a song and art work used in video. I just posted this on Facebook:



Your feedback is appreciated and is being considered to reflect the goals of this project. The Poetry Slam and Art Slam are meant to raise awareness and bring the community together — it was not created for any royalty gains as no money is being earned by either organization. We are looking into the appropriate language to obtain permission to publish submissions on social media and our websites AND permission to create the musical piece with the chosen poems AND a video montage of selected materials. We will update the Poetry page as soon as possible.

Can you explain to me your suggestion: non-exclusive licence to publish in perpetuity be better?

@adambeyoncelowe perhaps you can contact marilyn at omf.ngo to clarify the terminology?

 

Thanks for doing this. This is helpful.

To be fair to OMF, I did say it's likely because they don't understand what they're actually asking for, and I'm glad that seems to be the case.

I'll get in touch with Marilyn. I'll suggest some terms.

 

They have updated the terms!!! It is now non-exclusive, so that is great!

 

Yes, it's much better. They're obviously not going to make money from this, but it's sensible to let people retain rights to their own work.

 

You've emphasised 2 very important points for me @Hell..hath..no..fury...

1) false hope is, in a way, worse than no hope at all. At least if there's no hope you can adjust and make the best of things.

2) life is lived in the little everyday things and when you sacrifice those in the false hope of being able to do so much more tomorrow that's a very great sacrifice indeed.

Both of those being the underpinnings of the BPS strategy.

You put it so well.