The results of the 2009 Eratosphere Sonnet Bake-off are now posted on Distinguished Guest.

This morning I posted the last three finalist sonnets and issued a call for ballots.

Hope you all had fun!

The Eratosphere 2009 sonnet bake-off has begun! Everyone is invited to read and discuss the sonnets and Mr. Cassity's comments.

Dear Fellow Poets,

In choosing the finalists from the sixty-one sonnets submitted to me for this year’s bake-off, I relied on the wisdom of poets, the expertise of scholars and, of course, my own gut feelings, what I call the “goose-bump factor,” which may or may not be wise, but there it is.

My decision matrix was based on the following four main criteria (weights in brackets), all of which had sub-criteria as well:

(A) craft, sound, mechanics, images,...

The submissions have been coming in from Eratosphereans and others. However, the Spherean response has not been as lively as I expected. Yes, there's still over a month left in the submission window, so I encourage everyone who can to jump with their submission in their area of interest before teh May 1, 2009 deadline. The initial announcement can be found here.

Cheers,
...Alex