December Poetry Contest

Details

December is here, and that means NaNoWriMo is finishing up. Congratulations to everyone who participated! We figured that after cranking out 50,000 words in just 30 days you'd be a little tired of writing prose. So to give you a little variety, this month's contest is a poetry contest.

Have you heard of a rondeau? Until last month, we hadn't either. Then a friend of ours pointed us to a few rondeaus. The simple lyricism stuck with us, and we decided right then to make it the feature of our next contest.

A rondeau is a poem of thirteen lines of eight syllables (A and B), plus two lines of four syllables (C, for a total of fifteen lines), split into three stanzas. The C lines are special—they're what's called the refrain. This means that both of your C lines must match the first four syllables of your first A line. Confused? Take a look at this sample (shamelessly stolen from Wikipedia), with the refrains in bold:

We Wear The Mask, by Paul Laurence Dunbar

A We wear the mask that grins and lies,

A It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,—

B This debt we pay to human guile;

B With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,

A And mouth with myriad subtleties.

A Why should the world be over-wise,

A In counting all our tears and sighs?

B Nay, let them only see us, while

C We wear the mask.

A We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries

A To thee from tortured souls arise.

B We sing, but oh the clay is vile

B Beneath our feet, and long the mile;

A But let the world dream otherwise,

C We wear the mask!

Got it? So put it all together, and the rhyme scheme looks like this:

Stanza 1: A A B B A

Stanza 2: A A B C

Stanza 3: A A B B A C

As you can see, it's only fifteen lines, so your poem will be short. The trick is in finding rhymes for the A lines; rhyming 8 out of 15 lines without sounding repetitive is tricky!

You can learn more about the rondeau (and read some samples) at Wikipedia entry. Good luck!

Winning entries

Winners have been announced! Log in to see them.

Prizes

Rules

• Your entry must be an original poem in the rondeau style (described above).

• Entries must be received by December 31, 2008, and winners will be announced by January 7, 2009. Scribophile staff reserves the right to disqualify any contest entry for any reason and to change the terms of the contest for any reason.

• Entries will be judged by the Scribophile staff, taking into consideration the ratings given by Scribophile members. Decisions are final.

• Only one entry is allowed per member. Multiple entries will all be disqualified.

Submission guidelines

• To enter the contest, post your work on Scribophile and tag it with "december contest" (without quotes). Your work will automatically be considered.

• Email submissions will not be accepted.