[Maryann Corbett]

Thanks to Robin Kemp and the Formalista listserv for this news:

Writer's Digest is holding a sonnet competition.

Poetic Form Challenge: Sonnet

As Robin says, the Sphere should like this one.

[Roger Slater]

I think this would have been more appropriate as a PM to Catherine Chandler, don't you?

[Chris O'Carroll]

Here's how the guy who's running the competition defines a sonnet:

"It's basically just a 14-line poem with a flexible rhyme scheme. There's a general rule of thumb for meter, but I'll let you know right now that I won't be scanning lines."

I'll let you know right now that I won't be wasting my time.

[Duncan Gillies MacLaurin]

Well, Chris, Gail and I just entered even though our lines scan.

Duncan

[Maryann Corbett]

I suppose I might have censored this one on the grounds of metrical laxness, but perhaps we should suspend judgment until we see results. May real sonnets prevail!

[Mary Meriam]

Is there a prize at all? Somehow not getting the rules, duh.

[Chris O'Carroll]

Real quality might carry the day, even in a dumbed-down forum. I wish Duncan and Gail well, but both of them are, as they say in the stand-up comedy biz, too hip for the room.