Wednesday, June 09, 2010

Fondness for the Sonnet

NEW ENGLAND SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL SONNET AWARD
http://www.newenglandshakespeare.org./sonnet_contest.htm
$3 ENTRY FEE
$500 First Prize. Winners will be published in the Raintown Review, and will have a video clip of a Shakespearean Actor reading their poems posted here on the New England Shakespeare Festival website by Summer 2011. Sonnets must be Shakespearean: fourteen lines, ababcdcdefefgg rhyme scheme, basically written in iambic pentameter, variations and substitutions are permitted. Minors may enter the contest, but a parent/guardian must sign and return the Parent/Guardian permission form. Deadline August 1, 2010.

NOTE: First, the entry fee is decent, practically nothing. If you aren't willing to come off $3 for the chance at $500, you have no confidence in your work. If you are a poet, these ought to be fun. Remember high school and college attempts at writing a sonnet? They are so much fun.

DOUBLE NOTE: Ever get tunnel vision? You want to write and do nothing else? Or you need to write and get stuck gardening, cleaning, fill in the blank? When I'm gardening, I do it until I drop. When I'm writing, I do it until I'm cross-eyed and falling asleep on my hands. I wish they sold little packages of eight-hour energy at a kiosk in the mall so I could do more with this brain and body that never seems to last long enough to finish anything by bedtime.

2 comments:

T. Powell Coltrin said...

I wish I had the energy to do everything I want to do each day. Yes, I often have tunnel vision and especially with writing- like right now I need to get ready for work but I want to continue with the short story I am working on.

Thanks for posts that really interest me.

Hope Clark said...

You are quite welcome. There's so much to do in this life and so little time to do it.