2025 Sonnet Contest Winners
The 2025 Winning Sonnets were announced publicly at our Celebrate the Sonnet event on July 26, 2025. Many of the winners participated and the full recording of the event is available on our Events page.
The list of winners is below the video. The sonnets are published in a flipbook. Click here to read all of the winning sonnets.
2025 Sonnet Contest Winners
(The sonnets are published in a flipbook. Click here to read all of the winning sonnets.)
TOP FOUR
Radnóti's Notebook — Enriqueta Carrington (Highland Park, New Jersey)
Love Song — Andrea L. Hackbarth (Palmer, Alaska)
The Leveret — Cindy Hill (Middlebury, Vermont)
At the Oceanfront Hotel — Jean L. Kreiling (Plymouth, Massachusetts)
REGIONAL
Love’s Defense — Jeffry Glover (Stoughton, Wisconsin)
Goat Song — D. E. Green (Northfield, Minnesota)
Fireworks — B. Haugen (Eden Prairie, Minnesota)
Butterflies — Claude Clayton Smith (Madison, Wisconsin)
YOUTH
[entrants high school and under]
Unboxed Identity — Samantha Bernard (West Covina, California)
Failure Sonnet — Florian Shah (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)
My Paper Kite — Parth Singla (Gurgaon, Haryana, India)
Ars Poetica — Yan Zhang (Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China)
LAUREATES' CHOICE
A Watchman — Shamik Banerjee (Guwahati, Assam, India)
Mrs. Darcy’s Duck — Susan Jarvis Bryant (Port Lavaca, Texas)
Coming Home — Monika Cooper (Weare, New Hampshire)
Spring of Stone — Sijun Cui (Melbourne, Victoria, Australia)
Purgatory — Michael Fleming (Brattleboro, Vermont)
Wrong, Again — Philip Goldfarb Styrt (Davenport, Iowa)
Cold Season — Michael Harty (Prairie Village, Kansas)
Housework — Francesca Howard (New York, New York)
In realms of memory, where shadows play — Kayliana Jackson (Columbus, Mississippi)
On Letting the Mystery Be — Carl Kinsky (Ste. Genevieve, Missouri)
Interpersonal — Jason Ranek (Våle, Norway)
Barriers for Light — Erica Reid (Fort Collins, Colorado)
The Works, The Complete Works — Jason Sommer (St. Louis, Missouri)
Merlin to Wounded Arthur — David Southward (Milwaukee, Wisconsin)
Caeneus Syndrome — Rogelio Vargas (Winona, Minnesota)
Autism Sonnet — Theresa Werba (Spring City, Pennsylvania)