Are you up for a challenge?

Pebblebrook Press is holding a poetry contest to celebrate the release of Impersonations, a collection of lipogram poems by Mark Zimmermann. A lipogram is a written work composed of words chosen so as to avoid the use of one or more specific alphabetic characters.


The words in Zimmermann's poems contain only the letters that appear in the title of each poem, and each poem's title is the name of the person or character that poem is about. For example, his poem titled "Emily Dickinson" uses only words that consist of the letters E, M, I, L, Y, D, C, K, N, S, or O.

Are you ready to give it a try? It's not easy, but it's a lot of fun!

Here are the contest rules:

• You may enter up to three, original lipogram poems.
• Poems can come in any of the following forms:
1. Use only letters in the title of the poem. (The title doesn't have to be a person—it can be anything.)
2. Pick your favorite writer and use only the letters in his or her name. (Again, the title of the poem does not have to be the author's name.)
3. Use only the letters in "Stoneboat Literary Journal." 
4. Writer's choice: Create your own restraint, but tell us what it is when you submit. 
• Keep each poem under 25 lines. 
• Poems should be submitted to our email address: stoneboat.journal@gmail.com. 
• The deadline is April 1, 2015. 

The winner will receive a copy of Impersonations. Good luck!