Sonnet Competitions
The Howard Nemerov Sonnet Award, which ran under the aegis of The Formalist until that journal ceased to publish, is now associated with Measure, a successor journal published by the University of Evansville, Indiana. First Prize: $1000; entry fee $3 per sonnet. This one could be more international-friendly (postal entries only, with payment in $US) but enjoys high prestige among American formalist poets. The 2008 competition closed November 15 and the Final Judge is Timothy Steele. The winner for 2007 was Michael Juster, for “No” — his third Nemerov win. See Michael Juster’s sonnet and essay in this issue. Shortlisted (top ten) poets included Anna Evans, one of our selection panelists (her shortlisted sonent appears in this issue). Finalists each year are published in Measure.
The Open Poetry Competition was inaugurated in 2007. First Prize was £1400 (around US $2800) and the contest was judged throughout by a panel which included prestigious British poet Don Paterson. The competition was organised by Chistopher Whitby, Director of Open Poetry. (A sonnet by Christopher Whitby appears in this issue.) The competition takes online entries and payment. There was a substantial entry in 2007 (despite the relatively high entry fees). Christopher Whitby is seeking sponsorship for the competition with a view to running it again, probably in 2010. The 2007 winner was Julie Kane — another of her sonnets had already appeared in our Issue 3; she has since joined the selection panel, and the competition-winning sonnet appeared as an invitational in Issue 5. The anthology of the shortlisted 100 sonnets from this competition has been published and is available from the site at the link above. 14 by 14 panel member David Anthony and editor Peter Bloxsom have sonnets included in the anthology.
The concept of 14 by 14 is simple: we hope to find and publish, per issue, fourteen good contemporary sonnets by fourteen different authors.
Four centuries after Sidney and Shakespeare, the sonnet in English is alive and well, with traditionalist and modernist poets alike appreciating the seemingly inexhaustible scope of the fourteen-line form. As Don Paterson put it in the introduction to his anthology 101 Sonnets (1999):
The sonnet might be one of the greatest achievements of human ingenuity... it isn’t some arbitrary construct that poets pit themselves against out of a perverse sense of craftsmanlike duty — it’s a box for their dreams, and represents one of the most characteristic shapes human thought can take.
Paterson’s anthology is recommended, as is the sonnet essay here, by Anna Evans, and the sonnet essay here, by Tony Barnstone.
We have a leaning towards sonnets that fall recognisably within the tradition — namely sonnets in meter, with rhyme, but we’ll also look at unrhymed sonnets and new takes on the form.
We publish online only, although conceivably we might want to do a print anthology at some stage in the future. The sonnets we publish are selected by an international panel of American, British and Australian writers and editors.
Sonnet authors can submit online or by email.
Selection panel: David Anthony, Robert Crawford (2006 Nemerov winner), Rhina P. Espaillat (twice Nemerov winner), Julie Kane (Open Sonnet Competition winner), and Paul Stevens. (Anna Evans has left the panel following selection for Issue 7; no decision on a replacement has been made.) Editor: Peter Bloxsom