Forums → Art, Music, and Writing → The Sonnet Contest

To live every day,
Tis the greatest gift,
Keeping death at bay,
Being very swift.

Never holding back,
Never backing down,
As the man in black,
Follows me around.

I had lived in fear,
Of that which I dread,
Then it became clear.
He's one step ahead.

One simple mistake,
And my life he'll take.

I've never actually wrote a sonnet before, and don't really know how to either.

Is it every second line has to rhyme or something?
Further depth of explanation would be greatly appreciated.

Further depth of explanation would be greatly appreciated.

A Shakespearean, or English, sonnet consists of 14 lines, each line containing ten syllables and written in iambic pentameter, in which a pattern of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable is repeated five times. The rhyme scheme in a Shakespearean sonnet is a-b-a-b, c-d-c-d, e-f-e-f, g-g; the last two lines are a rhyming couplet.

I don't really care about the meter, though I still would prefer it be with the pentameter. Stressed/ Unstressed I don't care quite as much about, but most will end up that way anyway.

I don't really care about the meter, though I still would prefer it be with the pentameter.

So the rules are pretty much follow the pattern you mentioned, and ten syllables per line?

I wrote this for school. let me know what you think (by commenting on here AND on my profile)

Our world is now ending
As the time of life ceases
We shall keep pretending
To fix this love, now in pieces
Forget this love as it ends
For all we know is gone
Unless you want to pretend
To save what is forever lost
If we move on let's try to love
As we have loved before
But never again will we fall in love
Never walking through an open door
This writer is finished, our story is through
For never will I love again, as I did for you.

I admit that I did enjoy it, however it doesn't seem to fit the theme very well only vaguely mentions death, and focusing more on love.

How can you differ between the two told?
When you're dead or alive, asleep or awake?
How can you differ between hot and cold?
Whether life is true, or simply a fake?

Life misleads, hates, cheats you 'till end it comes.
Life warms, sparkles, makes happy untill end.
Life is there untill the bearer succumbs.
Life can be fun, until things do not blend.

But then, death, always the easy way out.
No pain, suffering for eternal dead.
Except for those religious, the devout.
Death is simple, yet still by many dread.

Beware, when life is sometimes hard to face,
think twice, before you then choose death's embrace.

Well, Walugi. Is this not supposed to be judged soon?

When one sonnet you have, no sense does it make to judge. (the other two don't fit the guidelines)

Both mine and GreatestSoloEver's they both fit the rhyme scheme, are 14 lines long, and there is no absolute rule of iambic pentameter; it's just traditionally more common due to Shakespeare and other writers of the era. There are versions of sonnets with longer or shorter numbers of syllables per line.

and there is no absolute rule of iambic pentameter

No, he said it was "usually in iambic pentameter", not always.

List of rules:

-sonnet must fit theme

-sonnet must be in by the deadline

-must be written for the contest (no poems written pre-contest)

-one submission per user

-the same person cannot win on consecutive themes

I don't really care about the meter, though I still would prefer it be with the pentameter.

Preferred, but not law.