Literary Diaries is holding a new contest that will start on September 10, and will last until December 1.

For this contest, you will compose an English sonnet (See Shakespearean Sonnet 116 as an example below).

You will have fourteen lines with rhyme scheme a/b/a/b, c/d/c/d, e/f/e/f, g/g.

Example:

Let Me Not to the Marriage of True Minds…

by SHAKESPEARE

Let me not to the marriage of true minds 
Admit impediments, love is not love 
Which alters when it alteration finds, 
Or bends with the remover to remove. 
O no, it is an ever fixèd mark 
That looks on tempests and is never shaken; 
It is the star to every wand’ring bark, 
Whose worth’s unknown although his height be taken. 
Love’s not time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks 
Within his bending sickle’s compass come, 
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, 
But bears it out even to the edge of doom: 
If this be error and upon me proved, 
I never writ, nor no man ever loved. 

The winning poems will be published on Literary Diaries.

Start date: September 10
Deadline: December 1

E-mail all submissions to Brianna@3.15.14.10