Teen Poetry Contest 2024 Official Rules
By entering the contest, you agree to these official rules (hereinafter referred to as "Contest Official Rules"), which constitute a binding contract between you and BART.
1. Contest general information
Contest: BART Lines – Teen Poetry 2024 (hereinafter referred to as “Contest”).
Organizer: San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit, whose headquarters are located at 2150 Webster Street, Oakland, CA 94612 (hereinafter “Organizer” or “BART”).
2. Stages of the Contest Submissions
Once a poem is submitted (hereinafter “Submission”) by an author (hereinafter “Author”) who qualifies according to the eligibility criteria set forth in Section 4, Submission is checked and validated by BART, who ensures that Submission qualifies based on the minimum requirements (length, suitability, age, residency, and acknowledgement of submission by parent or legal guardian if under age 18). Judgments and decisions made by BART as to Submission eligibility or disqualification are at BART’s complete discretion and are final. By submitting a poem, Author and/or Author's parent(s) or legal guardian(s) knowingly, intelligently and voluntarily agree to hold BART harmless as to any cause of action related to a Submission’s qualification or disqualification.
As soon as Submission is determined as complying with the Contest Official Rules and validated by BART (hereinafter referred to as “Qualifying Submission”), it will be reviewed by BART's Jury Panel. Once the submission deadline passes, requests to remove a submittal from consideration must be sent through the Submittable communication portal. Until the submission deadline, Authors may delete their Submission from the Submittable platform at any time.
Note to all applicants under age 18 as of January 19, 2024 (your 18th birthday is after 1/19/2024)
To comply with online privacy requirements and those of the Submittable platform, Authors must submit an acknowledgement of their application that is signed by a parent or legal guardian. Additionally, Author must provide the name and contact of a parent or legal guardian. If they do not have an email, Author must provide a mailing address where BART can send a request to verify their acknowledgement. The form will be provided in the Submittable Application.
For all applicants required to submit this contact, BART will verify their authorization of applicant’s participation. If BART does not receive this confirmation before review of applications is completed, BART will remove the application from consideration and delete all information related to the application.
Finalists
All qualifying submissions received, up to 300, will be reviewed by the jury panel. Submissions will be reviewed without the Author’s name or pseudonym included. The BART jury panel will select up to 30 Qualifying Submissions or 30 Qualifying Authors, whichever is less, as finalists (hereinafter “Finalists”).
The list of all Finalists will be announced by BART through its preferred social media and/or website on or about April 12, 2024. This announcement will be in a manner consistent with BART's Privacy Policy.
The Prizes
Each Finalist will receive a $75 honorarium as a Amazon gift card. Gift cards will be emailed or mailed to the address provided in the application, or as agreed upon with the finalists upon notification. BART may, at its sole discretion, provide an opportunity for Finalists to receive their gift cards in person at BART Headquarters at 2150 Webster Street, Oakland, CA 94612. BART will contact finalists via email, mail, or phone prior to mailing gift cards. If any finalist poem has two or more authors, each author will receive a $75 honorarium and the total number of finalists will be reduced by the number of multi-author poems selected.
The Jury Panel
Finalists will be selected by a panel that includes Bay Area poets from Youth Speaks and 826 Valencia, two standout Bay Area organizations lifting the voices of teen poets.
3. Contest duration The Contest opens on Friday, February 9, 2024 (12:00 a.m. PST) and will remain open until Friday, March 8, 2024 (11:59 p.m. PDT). The maximum number of applications to be accepted is 300, so the application period may close earlier when the maximum number of applications is received, whichever occurs first. Finalists will be announced on or around April 12, 2024. BART will notify finalists of the announcement date. This announcement will be in a manner consistent with BART's Privacy Policy.
4. Authors eligibility
Contest only open to the residents of the five Bay Area counties served by BART District: Alameda, Contra Costa, San Francisco, San Mateo, and Santa Clara. Applicants must be age 13-19 as of March 8, 2024. Age and residential location of Finalists will be verified prior to the announcement of Finalists. BART recognizes that residency can be defined in many ways. Initial application will only require city and state of residence information. If Author considers their residency to be predominantly in one of the five counties served by BART, they should apply and provide this information. If their application is selected as a finalist further information may be requested to ensure compliance in fairness to all applicants.
BART employees, including interns, and relatives of BART employees that meet the age qualifications can enter the contest.
All Authors must create their author account online on Submittable.
Authors shall choose their own username while creating their author account and shall also provide contact information to BART via their online account profile. BART must be able to easily contact Author for any reason. Authors, if selected as a Finalist, will have the option to publish their Submission under a pseudonym. Otherwise, authors under 18 years of age will be published with first name and initial of last name. Authors over 18 will be allowed to select publication under their full name.
After Submission, each Author will be emailed a confirmation of receipt by the Submittable system. Authors will receive an email if there is a change in status of their Submission.
5. Submission conditions
General Submission Conditions
No purchase is required to submit to the Contest. All the Submissions will be reviewed by the BART’s editorial team to ensure compliance with the Contest Official Rules. Each Submission can be disqualified if it does not comply with the Contest Official Rules. Each Submission must be original and written by the submitting Author/s and shall be written in English.
The submissions will close after 300 Qualifying Submissions are received, but no later than March 8, 2024.
The submission process is entirely electronic via the Submittable website.
No paper manuscripts will be accepted.
Specific Submission Conditions
- All poems must align to the theme "The Bay as Home".
- Submissions must not exceed 7,500 characters (including spaces). Each line longer than will fit on the dispenser print-outs, typically about 38-40 characters and spaces, will be divided as needed with a slash ("/").
- All genres are accepted, as long as they align broadly to a poetry format. BART’s editorial team will confer with the jurors regarding any questions or concerns regarding format.
- Submissions must be readable by audiences of all ages. No language that is derogatory, foul, gang-related, attacks specific individuals, religions, gender identities, is unlawful, obscene, defamatory, libelous, threatening, pornographic, harassing, hateful, racially or ethnically offensive, harmful to children, in violation of any third party's rights or encourages conduct that would be considered a criminal offense, give rise to civil liability, violate any law, or is otherwise inappropriate will be accepted. BART will make the final determination of appropriateness of language, and at its sole discretion may offer Authors whose work is selected as finalist the opportunity to make changes to language it feels is not appropriate for the diverse audiences that engage with the story dispenser platform in its stations. Finalists who do not agree to requested changes by BART will not be compensated, and their work will not be published by BART.
Multiple Submissions
- Authors can only submit one Submission, including collaborative pieces. You may be author or co-author on only one submission.
6. Rights granted on the Submissions
Subject to the acceptance of the poem as a finalist, the Finalist grants the right to BART to modify, edit, correct, adapt, reproduce, distribute, and publish Submissions on the Short-edition.com website and in BART's Short Story Dispensers. BART will verify all edits with Finalists prior to publishing. Finalists may choose to withdraw their work for the contest if they do not approve the edits. No honorarium will be paid to Finalists who withdraw their Submission. Finalists agree to allow BART to use their Submission as described herein for a minimum of ten (10) years from the date of the announcement of the selected finalists for the BART Lines Teen Poetry Contest 2024.
BART reserves the right to create and distribute a printed collection of the finalist Submissions, which would be of a limited edition not to exceed 1000, that BART would distribute at its discretion, and would be offered at a price not to exceed the cost of production. All Finalists would be offered one copy at minimum at no cost to them. It is BART’s sole decision whether it will create this printed collection and may do so at any time. BART may also reproduce the Finalist Submission, and images that include Finalist poems in whole or in part, for BART-related purposes including advertising of and for BART; educational, presentation and promotional materials; brochures, flyers, print, broadcast, film, electronic and multimedia publicity; and in BART social media and websites. BART shall ensure that such reproductions are made in a professional and tasteful manner, in its sole and reasonable judgement.
The Finalist agrees that, in the above cases, no royalties or any other payment or remuneration is due in connection with publication with the BART Lines Teen Poetry contest, either online or in print.
The copyright of the work shall remain with the Author.
Short Edition, the content provider for the BART story dispensers, at its discretion requests the right to contact the Author to enter into a long-form license contract for the publication of their Submission in the Short Story Dispensers around the world, outside of the Contest framework.
7. Author’s personal data
Submission of the registration details and any honorarium notification documents (hereinafter referred to as the “Entrant Data”) constitutes the consent by Author (and their Parent/Legal Guardian when applicable) given to the Organizer to obtain, use, and transfer the Author’s name, address and other details for Contest management purposes. By accepting an honorarium, all Finalists [and/or their parent(s)/guardian(s)] give their consent for the use of their names or pseudonym, biographical information as provided in the contest application, including city of residence, for promotional purposes (hereinafter referred to as the “Promotion”) by Organizer, including but not limited to the posting of their name (first name, last initial for Finalists under 18) or pseudonym on the Organizer’s website, in a Finalists list, without additional compensation, except where prohibited by law in a manner consistent with BART's Privacy Policy. Such Promotion shall be solely under control of the Organizer, and all Finalists hereby waive any right on the Promotion contents as well as any possible claims of misuse of their names under contract, tort or any other theory of law.
8. Author’s warranties
The Author declares that they are the sole author of any text they submit, and that this same text is an original creation. The Author declares that they control the copyright of the submitted text, meaning that they have never transferred these rights to a third person/entity.
The Submissions shall not violate or infringe any rights (including but not limited to privacy rights, copyrights, trade secrets, confidential information, trademarks, or trade names). Submissions shall not defame, libel, or slander anyone or any entity. Submissions shall not contain or describe any excessively obscene, vulgar, offensive, profane, or provocative violence or sex scene. Submissions shall not contain derogatory, racist, or sexist language or situations. Submissions shall not contain plagiarism, which includes the use of third-party poetry, song lyrics, characters, another person’s universe, or intellectual property, without written permission. Each Author is responsible and shall indemnify, defend and hold the Organizer harmless from and against any infringement claim related to its Submission.
9. Applicable law – Disputes
This Contest and these Contest Official Rules are subject to the laws of the United States, and the State of California. In the event of difficulty over the validity, interpretation or performance of these Contest Official Rules, the Author or the Organizer shall reach the other for an amicable dispute resolution. In case such amicable dispute resolution fails, or no solution is found within thirty (30) days from notification, the Author or the Organizer shall bring the dispute before the competent courts of the State of California.