Holy Worlds is a forum for writers, and in past years it's often seemed to me that these "birthday parties" have been a bit of a holiday(to use a Briticism; I've been reading a lot of Narnia fanfiction this week) from what one might call "real" writing for many of us.

As an encouragement to exercise our craft, not just our social natures and our wits, on this festive occasion, I hereby announce a little poetry contest. My first instinct was to make it a sonnet contest, but I would be very impressed if anyone was able to produce a creditable sonnet on this short notice(I've had it happen to me once in my life ...), so I immediately broadened my criteria.

Any poem, from a couplet on up, that seems to me to have a definite form, and which is more than 85% written on or after Thursday, September 20, 2018, is eligible; post it here or send it to me via PM before midnight Sunday night. I will select one poem, or perhaps two or three, from the submissions on the dual bases of adherence to form and artistry within the form and announce the winner here by Tuesday.

In addition to what fame and acclamation we can muster, the winner will receive an electronic copy, in a format of his or her choice, of my collection A Year in Verse, and a "mystery" work of speculative fiction in hard copy from the forum leadership.

Even Eustace Clarence Scrubb, prior to his undragoning, could manage a mildly creditable heroic couplet ("Some kids who played games about Narnia / Grew gradually barmier and barmier" isn't quite iambic pentameter, and only rhymes in one nonstandard accent, but is recognizably a couplet of a standard meter). Surely some of you can do better?

There once was a man from Des Moines,
Who fell deeply in love with his coin.
One he must lose.
God he must choose.
If the Body of Christ he would join.

-Arthur

I had not thought about limericks, but that one entry is well within the guidelines (and both rhymes and scans), so atpollard wins this contest.