ENTRIES CLOSED; THIS ONE HAS GONE TO THE JUDGES!

HUMONGOUS PRIZES!

BECOME A LITERARY CELEBRITY AT NO COST TO YOU!

Time for another kick at the can, another chance to be instantly famous across the Internet, around the world, in your neighbourhood—paparazzi will hound you, small children (not your own) will ask for your autograph, the greeter at McDonald’s will escort you to your table amidst hysterical applause, Kate & William will send telegrams (all right, tawdry celebrity is not all it’s cracked up to be, but this is the price of literary fame).

Entries will be accepted between May 1 and May 21. Entries, as with the aphorism contest, should be posted as comments on this page. Entries are open to anyone in the world, but only if they are written in English, French, Latin, or classical Greek (the only languages anyone can speak in this house). As with the aphorism contest, I encourage you to familiarize yourselves with the form. See the craft and technique page for help. Roughly speaking, we’re talking about a 19-line poem written in tercets (except for the last stanza which has four lines). The first and last line of the first stanza become the last lines of the following stanzas and also turn into a couplet at the end of the last stanza. These are fun to write and can actually turn out surprisingly well if you arm yourselves with strong refrain lines (think: panache, drama, obsession, schizophrenia). You need not be a poet to enter. And it’s always a good thing for prose writers to extend themselves; it makes their prose more interesting. One lesson to be drawn from writing a poem like this is the way form drives content instead of the other way around.

One example, familiar to most of us, is Dylan Thomas’s “Do not go gentle into that good night.”

Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,

Because their words had forked no lightning they

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright

Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,

And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight

Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,

Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.







But look around for other examples and check out last year’s entries. For example, here is Gary Garvin’s delightfully inventive “Spam Villanelle”

When will we meet again?

Can’t you answer the call?

Re: Order status 56041

It’s cold, don’t keep me waiting

Here is my number

When will we meet again?

Lovemaking bliss can be yours too

Reward your experience with marketable degree

Re: Order status 56041

Is your cell phone always busy?

Message you sent blocked by our bulk email filter

When will we meet again?

Let’s meet as usually

Your lady will not believe her eyes

Re: Order status 56041

We seek for you all day!

Come upstairs!

When will we meet again?

Re: Order status 56041

—Gary Garvin





And here is last year’s winning entry from Gwen Mullins.

Lovers and daughters slip and stray,

Laughing ungently at outstretched heart.

They will not linger; they cannot stay.

Like an errant skiff pulled from the cay,

The undercurrent serving its treacherous part,

Lovers and daughters slip and stray.

Shout from the shore, drink the drowning day,

Forget they planned to leave from the start.

They will not linger; they cannot stay.

Usher them toward safety into the quay,

Clasp them tight even as they depart;

Lovers and daughters slip and stray.

Still they go, they slide away

Like souls, they’ve mastered that sweet art.

They will not linger; they cannot stay.

Let them go and learn to pray;

Navigate by a new star chart.

Lovers and daughters slip and stray.

They will not linger; they cannot stay.

—Gwen Mullins