We here at metamorphosism.com have the distinct pleasure to announce the opening of this year’s St. Valentine’s Day Limerick contest. This could possibly be the contest’s 14th year, if you can believe that.

Time flies.

You may be wondering whether there is a prize this year. So far, no. But that could change. Yes, of course there is a prize. The winner will receive a copy of The Bug, a comic book starring Mig Living’s much-loved orthographically-challenged insectoid, tEh Bgu.

Before entering the contest, please read the following rules. As last year, to encourage you to read the rules, instructions on how to enter the contest are hidden within the rules. Contestants please note slight rule changes below, in the bonus theme section.

1. No fighting.
2. The three most important things: Scansion, scansion, scansion.
3. Enter as often as you like. The more often you enter, the better your chances of winning. But read the other rules first.
4. Violation of any of the following rules may hurt your chances, so please read them carefully.
5. Also please note that any of the following rules are subject to change without notice, at the whim of the contest organizers and judge(s). This is a feature, not a bug. By entering you accept this fact, and all of the rules, and even proactively accept future rules the current rules may change to at any time.
6. Entries must be limericks. (This rule never changes, promise.)
7. Entries should be artful and delight the reader’s artistic sensibilities.
8. Being limericks, entries may of course be humorous, bawdy, shocking, obscene, etc., but this is not required. All that is required is that the entry be a limerick (A-A-B-B-A rhyme scheme, etc, look it up). The wikipedia article on limericks, for example, is here.
9. Points are subtracted for violation of any of these rules.
10. Points are also subtracted arbitrarily in accordance with the application of the algorithm of unfairness.
11. Bonus points are awarded for incorporation of one or more bonus themes, listed below.
12. Bonus themes: failed utopias, gender issues, historical political movements, non-Western musical instruments, dipsomania, food poisoning (especially the bacteria that cause it), capitalism, Ayn Rand, sex dolls, historical articles of clothing, parasites that influence the behavior of the host, especially (but not only) in humans, the history of the tuxedo, B-movie tropes, television detective dramas, supernatural despair especially as portrayed in the fiction of Robert W. Chambers, the various proteins on the surface of the influenza virus, historic epidemics, the economics of monopolies.
13. Bonus themes are subject to change during the contest, possibly rendering entries previously eligible for bonus points suddenly ineligible.
14. *NEW*: HARDSHIP POINTS Extra hardship points will be awarded to limericks written without the letter “E”.
15. But don’t worry, it’s all good.
16. Entries should be submitted in the comments to this post.
17. Deadline is 14 February, winners will be announced 14 February.
18. Judging and other procedures in the conduct of this contest pretend to be crooked, but they are actually pretty fair, but there is never any guarantee this will be the case this time. Just assume the contest is crooked and unfair and you won’t be disappointed.
19. Complaints will be deleted.
20. There is no right to, nor avenue of, appeal.
21. You may enter as often as you like. So check back often to read all the new entries and see if the rules have changed, or the bonus themes.
22. By entering the contest, you grant metamorphosism.com permission to publish your entry (here in the comments where you enter it, and possibly on facebook or twitter, to publicize the contest) but you retain all rights to your entries.
23. Feel free to email me at metamorphosist@gmail.com if you have any questions or find one particular limerick especially great or whatever.
24. Please have fun.
25. Last, but not least: my deep thanks to my talented friend Bran Fox for designing the logo for this year’s contest, as in so many years past.