It is Sonnet Season! Maria W. Faust Sonnet Contest–2025–Open Until June 1, 2025

2025 Maria W. Faust Sonnet Contest
Call for Entries

Entries are now being accepted for the 2025 Maria W. Faust Sonnet Contest. The entry process is a one-step system. Sonnet(s) must be submitted with the Entry Form. Complete instructions for entering are available on our website.

The Maria W. Faust Sonnet Contest is an annual event that welcomes entries from around the world. Cash prizes, totaling over $3,000, will be awarded in several categories.

For more complete information, please click on the link below:

sonnetcontest.org

The deadline for entries is June 1, 2025. Submissions should be made through our on-line process, with payment option by PayPal or check. If this process presents a hardship, instructions for entering by mail will be provided upon request. Just send us an email.

entries@sonnetcontest.org

I love sonnets! The form is perennially engaing, long enough for complexity but short enough to memorize. I expect to be sharing a few newly minted ones this April. And I am looking forward to reading all the entries for the Maria W. Faust Sonnet Contest. If you have any newly minted sonnets now–or come to have any before June 1–why not submit one or more to this wonderful contest. (Check out previous winning entries at the contest website.)

Happy writing! Happy spring!

Leslie

Rose Made of Palm Frond

Happy Vernal Equinox! & Looking Forward to April Poems — My Ninth Experiment!–in 2025

Welcome to Spring!

Here in Minnesota, the earth is just waking up. This week, we have seen the first robins returning, the first cardinals, and the first brilliant blue scilla buds. It might be windy and chilly, but the days are longer and warmer, and the land knows spring is unstoppable.

This year, I am returning for the ninth time to the practice of writing and sharing a poem each day in April. This challenge, which I first attempted ten years ago, in 2016, has proven to be fun, fruitful, and sometimes frustrating for me. (Last year, I gave myself a fallow April, so this will be my ninth attempt.) Again this year, I will be sharing each morning’s poem via email, with an additional April something here on Winona Media. If you previously received emailed poems in 2023, you are already on the list. (Let me know if you wish to be removed from the list this year.) If you would like to be added to the list, let me know.

And if you are someone who is also participating in the April poems this year and would like me to share that information here, let me know! The more, the merrier!

My plan for this year’s poems comes from talking with botanist friend Bob Benson. I shall say more about that on April 1st. Meanwhile, may these crazy March winds blow all our winter cobwebs away–

Winter’s Last Sunset (March 19, 2025)