2010 Guidelines

Submission Dates: May 1 through June 1 2010!

Entries received before May 1 or postmarked after June 1 will be sent back or discarded.

What

Category 1

Form: Ballad
Theme: Humility

Ballads are poems that tell a story. They are considered to be a form of narrative poetry. They are often used in songs and have a very musical quality to them. The core structure for a ballad is a quatrain, (four lines) written in either abcb or abab rhyme schemes. The first and third lines are iambic (metric foot which goes: stressed/unstressed) tetrameter, with eight beats per line; the second and fourth lines are in iambic trimeter, with six beats per line. Your ballad may be 4 to 5 stanzas long, and you may choose either one of the rhyme schemes listed above.

Some examples of a ballad can be found here:

Samuel Taylor Coleridge: The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
Robert Louis Stevenson: Sing me a Song of a Lad that is Gone

Category 2

Form: Blank Verse Dramatic Monologue
Theme: Mercy

Blank verse is one of the most versatile poetic forms of the English language. It is simply unrhymed lines of iambic pentameter, and has been used by poets from Shakespeare to Frost. Entries are to be a dramatic monologue of 15–25 lines of blank verse. Pentameter means the line has five groupings of rhythmic syllables called feet. In this case the feet are iambic, which means that they are composed of a short syllable and then a long (or emphasized) syllable. The line is composed of 10 syllables and follows this pattern: short long / short long / short long / short long / short long. An example of a line of iambic pentameter is “To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.” from Tennyson’s Ulysses.

Note that while following the form is a large part of what gives a poem its beauty, poets will sacrifice exact adherence to the form if it suits their purpose. The poetic decision to do something slightly different for one or two lines is a legitimate one, but the pattern of the form should always be discernable.

The dramatic monologue is a type of poem that has often been coupled with blank verse. The speaker in the poem is a single fictional or historical character, and is separate from the author of the poem. The audience takes the place of a silent listener. The poem reveals the speaker’s character and or story through his or her own words rather than the author’s narration. Through imagination and inference, the reader is often able to see a bigger picture than the character would wish to reveal.

Some examples of a dramatic monologue in blank verse are:

Alfred Lord Tennyson: Ulysses
Robert Browning: Fra Lippo Lippi
Robert Frost: A Servant to Servants

Category 3

Form: Heroic Couplet
Theme: Justice

This is a traditional form of English poetry. While it is not commonly used today, it was a popular choice in the 18th century. The iambic pentameter couplet came to be called “heroic” because by the middle of the seventeenth century it was regarded as the proper form for dealing with “heroic” subjects—deeds of high accomplishment and matters of public interest and admiration—“proper” because it appeared to fit fairly unobtrusively the prose rhythms of the English language (long considered to be basically iambic) and because the five-stress line seemed most often to provide dignity and distance without intruding too much formality or aloofness.

A typical couplet line is 10 syllables long, with alternating unstressed and stressed syllables. The pattern of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed one is called iambic; because there are normally five stresses in each line, the meter is called pentameter. Each couplet—that is, each set of two lines—is “sealed” by an end-rhyme, with the sound repetition usually involving only the final stressed syllable.

Some examples of heroic couplet poetry are:

Alexander Pope: Essay on Criticism John Denham: Cooper’s Hill (excerpt)

We try to choose themes that will leave a lot of room for students’ imagination and interpretation, without us dictating the response. We want students to come up with their own ideas of what best portrays the given quote, without us dictating the response.

Students do not have to actually include the theme word in their poem. The words are meant to be the inspiration and theme behind whatever images or story the students decide to portray.

We hope that students will come up with many imaginative ideas to fit the theme. Our judges love it when a student comes up with something they had not thought of before.

Who

Category 1: Homeschoolers* ages 7 to 10 as of May 1, 2010.
Category 2: Homeschoolers* ages 11 to 14 as of May 1, 2010.
Category 3: Homeschoolers* ages 15 to 19 as of May 1, 2010.

* For the purposes of this contest, an eligible student must have been home educated in the past year and received a majority of his or her education in the past year through home education.

Format and Submissions

1. Poems must be the work of the student entering the contest. No assistance of other parties, including but not limited to editing or proof reading, is permissible.
2. The poems should be typed, in at least 12 point font, and single spaced with a double space between stanzas.
3. Each poem must have a title.
4. Each author may enter up to five poems. Each poem requires a separate entry fee.
5. Only one poem per page.
6. The student’s phone number should appear at the top of each page. NO OTHER from of identification should appear on these pages.
7. The poem must be accompanied by an entry form including the student’s full name, date of birth, HSLDA membership number (where applicable) and contact information, including email and phone number, should be on a separate sheet of paper.

Poems, entry form, and entry fee must be mailed to:

HSLDA
Attn: Poetry Contest
P.O. Box 3000
Purcellville, VA 20134-9000

Entries must be postmarked on or before June 1, 2010. Only entries sent to the above address will qualify for the contest.

Fee

The check should be made payable to “HSLDA” with a note of “Poetry Contest” in the memo line. Please do not enclose cash.

Prizes for Each Category

Judging

1. Poems will be evaluated by a panel of judges appointed by HSLDA.
2. Poems will be judged on originality of thought, writing style, and adherence to both the theme and the traditional requirements of the form.
3. The decision of the judges is final.
4. Results of the contest will be released by mid-July 2010.

Other Information

By submitting a poem you:

• Grant Home School Legal Defense Association the right to publish all or part of your submission.
• Agree to all rules and the decisions of the judges and sponsors.

Home School Legal Defense Association is not responsible for any lost, damaged, misdirected, delayed, mutilated, incomplete, illegible, or postage-due entries or mail.

All profits from this contest will go to the Home School Foundation’s Special Needs Children Fund

Please contact the Contest Coordinator at contests@hslda.org with any questions.