Great to be here as a new member of this community! Thanks for having me.
I sympathize with the judges, who must necessarily be wrestling with the many possible definitions of “sonnet” in trying to decide A) whether a more expansive poem still is one and B) whether a strictly traditional sonnet is contemporary enough to carry the values of our age, and whether that matters or not.
What I find most interesting is that we each have our own definition of what a contemporary sonnet is. I’m guessing that only the most traditional among us would argue for holding to the strictest definition of what a sonnet is (if it were even possible to settle on just one of the many historical permutations). That said, we each have our own ideas as to which of the “traditional” elements of sonnet-ness are most important, which are deal-breakers and which are negotiable. For me, some are elemental, and I’m not willing to lose them. These include: regular, recurring meter, the presence of a volta that actually does something, and that the poem consists of fourteen lines. Other things, especially in my own sonnets, I have a more expansive view of, such as subject matter and rhyme scheme.
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