Thanks very much for the information, and you definitely made things more clear to me....
I ended up purchasing Pages the other night. It was a lot more user-friendly than I was guessing, and after playing around with it for awhile, I think I overall understand how it works. I had a poem that I wanted to try to submit, so I typed it into the app, and from there figured out how to get it posted here by cutting/pasting. I also saw how easy it is to send it along as a Word document when e-mailing/etc, so now that makes sense to me also.
A little bit of trial and error seems to go a long way
Thanks again--really appreciate the help!
Laura