What to Submit?
For this contest you must use the title of my contest as your poem’s title, or it will be eliminated: Half Past Summer, Two Months Till Fall.
You have five options for writing your poem. Here they are:
Option 1: A sijo, using correct syllable count according to rules given here at Soup. If doing a sijo, do not incorporate the title into your sijo.
Option 2: A tanka, modern or traditional, with no capitalization. Once again, do not use the title inside your poem.
Option 3: A Triolet. You may use the title inside it if you’d like, even if it’s one of the refrain lines. Most triolet poems are 8 syllables per line.
Option 4: One five-line Quintain (Sicilian) preferably iambic pentameter with rhyme scheme ababa. Because this poem uses iambic pentameter, it would not be wise to incorporate the title inside it.
Option 5: Beautiful free verse with limit of 8 lines. You may use the title inside this verse if you want to. If you write free verse, I want to see an exceptional one with striking imagery.
Whichever option you choose, check “Types of Poems” at Soup if you are unsure how to write in the form you’ve chosen.
I hope you come up with a gem for my mid-summer poetry contest.
Preparing Your Entry
Submit one copy of your poem online. Format your poem. Please make your entry easy to read — no illustrations or fancy fonts.
English Language
Poems should be in English. Poems translated from other languages are not eligible, unless you wrote both the original poem and the translation.
A Note to Poetry Contestants
You are welcome to enter this contest, whether or not you won a prize in one of my previous contests.