[Aaron Poochigian]

And the winners are:

For third place. . . (drum roll). . . “The Jitterbug”!

For second place. . . (drum roll). . . “Saturday Night in Kirriemuir”!!

And for first place. . . (drum roll, cymbal clash). . . “X”!!!

My congratulations to the winners!

. . . . .

My personal choices for the top three are:
1.) X
2.) Saturday Night in Kirriemuir
3.) Process of Elimination

I must say deciding on a personal third-place poem was difficult indeed—“Thirteen” and “The Jitterbug” were nipping at the heels of “Process of Elimination” until the very moment I went to press.

. . . . .

With these revelations, my role is finished, and I will now step off the stage.

My gratitude to all participants!

[Alex Pepple]

Per our tradition, it's now time to declassify our Top-Secret Sonnet Bake-off and unveil the Who's Whos. But first, a big thank you to our Top Secret DG, for a most successful event, with a strong list of finalists. And thank you to all who submitted, and all the participants of the event. Congratulations to the winners as now revealed by our TSDG--

TOP THREE WINNERS of the 2016 Sonnet Bake-off are:

1. "X" by Julie Steiner
2. "Saturday Night in Kirriemuir" by Susan McLean
3. "The Jitterbug" by Elise Hempel

Congratulations to our WINNER Julie Steiner!

Coincidentally--since as the anonmyzer, I already knew the identities of all the finalists--without waiting for the voting process to even commence, I'd already asked our top-three sonneteers for their sonnets for Able Muse, print edition, given that they were the ones that had also appealed the most to me. (Still, if a different sonnet outside the above top-three had won, then as I'd promised in my follow-up contest's bonus announcement, I'd have also added it in the publication mix.). With that, my double congratulations for also achieving publication to Julie, Susan, and Elise!

Next, here are the remaining finalists in alphabetic order (and the TSDG may want to edit the result post to list all the ten finalists with the point tally for each given that it's my experience that most members, especially the finalists, want to know where they placed in the top ten):

4. "Desilu" by Simon Hunt
5. "Fourth Dimension" by Tim Murphy
6. "Garden Sonnet" by Mark Mcdonnell
7. "Hundreds of Corks" by Claudia Gary
8. "Process of Elimination" by Joshua Coben
9. "Shall I Compare Thee to a Winter’s Day" by Wesli Court (a pseudonym for Lewis Turco)
10. "Thirteen" by David Danoff

Congratulations and thank you to all!


Finally, who is our expert sonneteer aka Top Secret DG? Check the TSDG's posts, where the username should be, by now, decoded and declassified!

Cheers,
...Alex

[Jayne Osborn]

Wonderful news!

Massive congratulations to Julie for winning this fun event - X got my vote for 1st place - and well done to Susan and Elise, indeed ALL of the finalists.

Many thanks to Aaron for taking on the job (I never guessed it was you!). But I was right when I said I thought the DG was young(ish) and American. (I forgot to say ''and probably handsome" )

Finally, thanks to Alex for putting on the Bake-Off for us all. It was a big success.

Jayne

[Aaron Poochigian]

Jayne, I will take "probably handsome" any day. I was impressed with Simon Hunt's dead-on identification of me as "a Weirdo." I confess to subterfuge in that I peppered the DG's language with British idiom ("queue," "Hol," "the Americans," etc.) for a linguistic "Zersetzung" effect--did I use them convincingly?

Yup, though I'm a incorrigible Anglophiliac, there ain't no denyin' I was a gun-totin', "Don't-Tread-On-Me" 'Merican even in ma mama's womb. Darn-tootin'. So liberating to be able to speak like myself again.

[Catherine Chandler]

Congratulations to Julie, Susan and Elise!

I also got a huge kick out of the yearly visit of Miss Jennifer Gordon and her hilarious comments!

[Maryann Corbett]

Kudos to all, and many thanks to Aaron and Alex for running this.

[Mary McLean]

Congratulations to Julie, Susan and Elise! I already knew you were three of my favourite sonneteers. And thanks to the organisers for another great event.

[Mark McDonnell]

Thanks to Alex and Aaron for running this and well done Aaron for maintaining such a convincingly odd secret identity.

Congratulations Julie! A worthy winner. Even though I played annoying Devil's Advocate in my crit of 'X' it is a hugely clever poem. And really, what do I know? (seriously)

I've thoroughly enjoyed this and still can't believe I made the final. This seems as good a place as any to say this, so I will: thanks so much to everyone for making me feel welcome since I joined the 'sphere. This is a wonderful place.

Now back to Julie..

[Claudia Gary]

Thanks to Aaron and Alex, and congratulations to the winners!
Aaron, you had me fooled.
This was fun.

[Tim Murphy]

Congratulations to the winners and us alsorans. Thanks to Alex and Aaron.