[Kevin Andrew Murphy]

Taking place from Saturday, June 30th to Tuesday, July 3rd, in San Mateo, California, Westercon 60, the annual west coast science fiction convention, is pleased to announce the 1st Annual Westercon Bouts-Rimes Poetry Contest

"Come, muse, let us sing of rats!" -- (From a poem by James Grainger,
1721-1767)

The Bouts-Rimes is Iron Chef for sonneteers. Invented by the French and popularized by the Blue-stockings of 19th century England, the contest gives the poet not one but fourteen mystery ingredients which must be used, in order, as the end words to complete a sonnet (or sonnets) of their own devising. For your delight and torment, we offer the following list with which to create a sonnet, taken from "As when a child..." by Charles Lamb:

1. night
2. knees
3. delight
4. decrees
5. spell
6. time
7. sublime
8. Hell
9. tear
10. tell
11. dear
12. fell
13. impart
14. heart

Metrical choice is up to the poet. Traditional iambic pentameter is acceptable, as is anapestic tetrameter or other variants, including longer or shorter free verse lines. Spelling and punctuation of words may be varied, but basic sounds should be kept intact. The word "dear" may be changed to "deer." The word "tell" may be hidden in "foretell."

The judges anticipate your cleverness, and will look with especial favor on sonnets of a science fiction, fantasy or horror nature. In keeping with the theme of this Westercon, "Gnomeward Bound," extra points for poets who slip the word "gnome" somewhere into their poems as an additional mystery ingredient, and bonus points for poems on the theme of returns or homecoming.

Please bring your submissions to the convention and present them at the Bouts-Rimes Poetry Contest Panel on Sunday. There will be a second contest with a second list of words for Monday, given out at the convention.

Winning poems will be published in the convention newsletter. Other nifty prizes may be bestowed upon the winners.

[Janet Kenny]

Kevin,
Is it open to outsiders, by mail or email?
Janet

[Kevin Andrew Murphy]

Janet,

Unfortunately no--it's limited to participants at the convention. Which is of course west coast regional and thus takes in a larger geographic area than the BayCon contest, but is still is not terribly convenient for people in Australia or anywhere else outside the US or Canada (though there are some Australians who come, though you generally meet more at a WorldCon).

Of course, that's just for the prizes and the at-con publications--anyone who wants to is free to just do it for fun. There's already been a very good one posted over at the Sonnet Board for the BayCon challenge, and I'm thinking I might read some of those as exhibit pieces at the con (which is what the judges do with their own pieces).