FPS: The Sonnet of Shadows Challenge Winners
A behind-the-scenes glimpse at the Vocal Curation Team’s top picks from The Sonnet of Shadows.
Welcome to the winners announcement for the second challenge in the Fall Poetry Series. The Sonnet of Shadows was especially tough to judge, so many standout submissions made choosing just a few a real challenge.
Writers were asked to balance light and dark in love, memory, and imagination, all within the bounds of a 14-line sonnet. The results were moving, inventive, and full of contrast. From joy and ache to doubt and clarity, each piece carried emotional weight and poetic craft in equal measure.
🏆 Winners
Such are the Blue Climes by Gabriel Huizenga
Gabriel Huizenga's sonnet moves through emptiness and creation with a quiet sense that absence can be its own kind of muse. It shifts from dark to light in a way that feels both thoughtful and earned. The final couplet lands a gentle but powerful truth: sometimes peace lives in the pieces we carry.
deep things in darkness by John Cox
John Cox's piece invites you into a space where light and dark aren't opposites but companions. With Biblical and mythic echoes woven throughout, it explores the quiet strength found in shadow and the lessons waiting in the depths. The result is thoughtful and grounded, ending on a note of hope that lingers.
Grapes of Putrescence by Imola Tóth
Imola Tóth's entry leans into the beauty of decay with vivid, sensory detail. The image of ripened grapes slipping into rot is both lush and haunting, turning sweetness into something darker but no less captivating. It’s a rich take on how desire lingers even as it fades, and how ruin can carry its own strange elegance.
Chiaroscuro by Phar West Nagle
Phar West Nagle's poem brings light and shadow together in a way that feels both honest and tender. What starts with fear and sharp edges slowly shifts into trust, showing how love can hold space for both pain and care. The turn lands smoothly, reminding us that even our messiest parts can lead to real connection.
Alchemy by E.K. Daniels
E.K. Daniels' reflection moves from shadow into light with a rhythm that feels both grounded and intimate. The imagery is rich and tactile, especially in the way it celebrates connection through small, shared moments. The final couplet ties it all together, leaving a sense that even in darkness, something true and golden can be found.
🎖️ Runners-up
- “A door through the crevice of which the moonshine peeps in”* by Alison McBain
- The Turn by Hannah Moore
- The Glimpse of the Tattered Man by Scott A. Vancil
- Wolf In Shepherd’s Clothing by Sean A.
- Those Glaring Eyes by Callum Summers
- Greenlight by Gerard DiLeo
- What if I Told You by Cathy holmes
- Midnight Eyes by Obsidian Words
- Photo Finish by Marilyn Glover
- Narcissus in Candlelight by Paul Stewart
- Weighted Blanket by Justin
- destroy my notebooks when I’m gone, please dear by Chloe Corcoran
- Pemaquid Point by Raistlin Allen
- What Our Hearts Have Learned by Dana Crandell
- Only time can undo... by Leigh Hooper
🏅 Honorable Mentions
- The Day Dreamer by Lizzy Rose
- A River Through Ruin by River and Celia in Underland
- Persephone’s Ascent by Harper Lewis
- Winter Night, Give Way to Spring by Amanda Starks
- Logarithmic Drift by Pamela Williams
- Rejection (Sonnet 1) by Conor Darrall
- Ghost in the Fire by Katharine Poole
- And your loveliness by Emily Ryan
- Forces by Jessica McGlaughlin
- flowers of fate by Joe O’Connor
Check out the latest on Vocal Challenges.
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Comments (29)
Beautiful piece!
Great work everyone.
Ohhhhh Congratulations congratulations soo happy for uhhhh🥳
Congratulations For everyone I am happy to challenge Many thanks to the Vocal team.
Congratulations, everyone, and thank you, Vocal, for selecting my poem as a runner-up winner!💜
Congratulations!!!!!
Congratulations to everyone! 🎉🎉 Thank you Vocal Team for selecting my sonnet as one of the winners! It was a huge surprise to see the email today, I didn't even dare to dream to make it to the list of Honorable Mentions.
congrats
Congratulations to all of the winners and mentions! This was a lovely challenge!
Congrats to all the winners and mentions! The range of emotions and imagery in these sonnets is incredible; this challenge clearly inspired some amazing work. By the way, I attempted to write for this prompt as well, but I didn't enter the competition coz of my free subscription.
I missed this one! Congrats to everyone mentioned ^_^.
Well-done
Congratulations to everyone! 🎉💖🎊🎉💖🎊
Congratulations to all. I will catch up on this list over the next few days
Congratulations to all the winners, so many good poems!! And thank you vocal for choosing me as a runner up❤️
Congratulations 🎉🎉🎉
Congratulations to you all🦋🏆✍️📕🏆🦋
Good 👍😊 were well
Congratulations to everyone!!
Congratulations All!
Congratulations everyone 🎉🎉🎉🎉
In shadows deep, where sonnets weave their spell, The Vocal scribes have spun their tales of light. This challenge, oh, it put us through such hell— Fourteen lines to balance dark and bright! The winners gleam like stars in midnight’s sprawl, Their words of grapes and gloom, of love’s soft sting, While I, with pen, did trip and nearly fall, My sonnet’s rhymes like cats on skates did swing. Yet Huizenga and Cox, with craft so sly, And Tóth’s decay, a putrid, pretty art, Have snatched the crown—my muse just waves bye-bye! Nagle and Daniels dance with shadow’s heart. Congrats, you bards, your lines outshine my jest— My sonnet’s stuck in drafts, a tangled mess!
Congratulations,😊
Ahhh! I'm so happy I made a HM! Honored to be next to some truly amazing poets!
I'm blown away - thank you so much, all!! I can't wait to catch up on all of the brilliant sonnets from this challenge. I am as grateful as ever for this space for creativity and encouragement...cheers, friends!