"From A Very Little Sphinx"
-- Edna St. Vincent Millay

Come along in then, little girl!
Or else stay out!
But in the open door she stands,
And bites her lip and twists her hands,
And stares upon me, trouble-eyed;
'Mother,' she says, 'I can't decide!'


Dear Poets,

With only five days left until the bake-off sonnet submission deadline, already I am having to make some very tough decisions....

Into the golden vessel of great song
Let us pour all our passion; breast to breast
Let other lovers lie, in love and rest;
Not we, - articulate, so, but with the tongue
Of all the world . . . Edna St. Vincent Millay

In a half-forgotten box in my parents’ attic, there is an old black and white photograph of my sister Debby and me sitting on the lawn of the Vassar College campus, Poughkeepsie, NY, circa 1954. On the back of the picture, my mother wrote those...

Good morning!

So far, I have received a variety of sonnet forms, including the Sicilian, Petrarchan, Shakespearean, and Spenserian. Various meters, rhymed, unrhymed; voltas all over the place or non-existent. I've even received one double sonnet (which is OK as the double sonnet is a recognized form where two sonnets together form a single poem).

I just wanted to make it clear that these forms are acceptable for the bake-off, as would be a caudate or curtal, should...

In answer to a submitter's question on protection from Google, Alex has been kind enough to inform me:

...

If anyone tried to send me a sonnet this morning between 5:30 a.m. and 8:30 a.m. Eastern Standard Time, you probably did not get through due to the Google gmail crash.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sciencean...ash-fixed.html

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,499106,00.html

If so, please resend, as the problem has been fixed.

Thank you.

Cathy