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Competition Rules & Fair Play.

Everything about how the Dropwords Poetry Challenge is judged, how prizes are paid, and how your work is protected — in plain language.

Last updated: May 2026

The Dropwords 30-Day Poetry Challenge is built on one principle: a poet should know exactly how the contest works before they enter. This page is the official rulebook, and it forms part of our Terms & Conditions.

1. Eligibility

Open to anyone who loves poetry — all skill levels, all backgrounds, in India and worldwide.
No age limit. Participants under 18 must have permission from a parent or legal guardian.
Each participant enters as an individual and must submit their own original work.

2. Entry Fee

Entry is completely free. There is no fee to register or to take part in any of the six phases. Dropwords will never ask a participant to pay money to enter or to win.

3. How to Enter

Complete the registration form linked on the Competition page.
Follow @dropwords on Instagram so we can reach you with prompts and results.
Write and submit your poem for the phase's theme. Hindi, Urdu, and English are all welcome.
Register once and you are eligible for all six monthly phases.

4. Submission Guidelines

Work must be original, written by you, and not plagiarised or fully AI-generated.
Work must not contain hate speech, harassment, or unlawful content.
Submit by the deadline announced for each phase. Late entries roll into the next phase.

5. How Winners Are Decided

Once published by Dropwords, each poem competes on the Live Leaderboard over a 30-day window, scored transparently:

Score = (Views × 1) + (Likes × 1 ) + (Comments × 1) + (Shares & Saves × 1)

The poems with the highest total score at the end of the 30-day phase win. The leaderboard is updated openly so every participant can see where they stand.

6. Prizes & How They Are Paid

Each phase has a prize pool of ₹15,000 — 1st place ₹7,000, 2nd place ₹5,000, 3rd place ₹3,000. The same poet may win in more than one phase. Across all six phases, up to ₹90,000 is awarded.

Our prize-payment promise

Winners are announced publicly within 30 days of a phase closing.
Prize money is paid by UPI or bank transfer within 15 days of the announcement, directly to the winner.
Winners are asked only for the payment details needed to send the prize — never for any fee or deposit.
Each completed phase and its paid winners are recorded on our Winners page as public proof.

7. Your Work Stays Yours — The Artist Charter

What you keep

You retain full copyright and ownership of every poem you submit. Dropwords never claims authorship.
You are free to publish, perform, enter, or sell your poem anywhere else — winning or losing changes nothing about your rights.

What you grant us

A non-exclusive licence to publish and promote your poem — always credited to you by name — on Dropwords and our official social channels, so it can compete and reach readers.
That's all. We do not sell your work, license it to third parties, or use it in paid advertising without asking you first.

You can ask us to remove your published poem at any time by emailing connect@dropwords.in.

8. Fair Play & Anti-Fraud

Buying views, likes, comments, or followers, or using bots or fake accounts, is strictly prohibited.
Suspicious or artificially inflated engagement may be discounted or lead to disqualification.
Plagiarised work is disqualified.

9. Disputes & Contact

If you believe a result is wrong or have a concern, contact us within 30 days of a phase result at connect@dropwords.in or on WhatsApp at +91 9623928018. We review every genuine concern.

10. Changes to These Rules

We may refine these rules between phases to keep the contest fair. The "Last updated" date above shows the latest version, and material changes are communicated to registered participants.

Note: These rules are written to be clear and fair. We recommend a qualified legal professional reviews them, and any prize-related tax obligations, before each competition cycle.

Now you know how it works.

Go to the Competition