In honor of the victory of Lepanto and the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, we are running a rather unusual contest until October 17th.

For those who aren’t familiar with the battle, I quote from Dale Ahlquist’s introduction to the book Lepanto :

The Battle of Lepanto was fought  on Sunday, October 7, 1571, just south of the town of Lepanto, Greece, in the Gulf of Lepanto, which ajoins the Gulf of Patras on the west and the Gulf of Corinth on the east. The battle was key turning point in history. The Islamic forces under Selim II controlled the Mediterranean and were threatening to attack both Venice and Rome, which could have led to the collapse of Christian Europe. The poem brings out the fact that the odds are against Christendom in this monumental standoff. The Holy League will get no help from Germany, divided and weakened by the Protestant Reformation; or from England, under the self-absorbed “cold queen”, Elizabeth I; or from Francec, under the worthless “shadow of the Valois”, King Charles IX. But a surprise hero rises to the occasion: the “last knight of Europe”, twenty-four-year-old Don John of Austria, illegitimate son of Emperor Charles V, who miraculously leads the Christian forces to victory.

The contest consists of the following:

1. Write a haiku about either the Battle of Lepanto or the Rosary.
2. Post the haiku on your blog or Facebook account and link back to this post .
3. Leave a comment on this post pointing to your poem just so we make sure that we don’t miss one when we do the judging.
4. Only poems written in proper haiku format will qualify. Bonus points will be awarded if you mention a season in the poem.

After the contest ends on October 17th, the Aquinas and More staff will pick the three best poems (in our opinion) and send the winners a copy of the book Lepanto signed by Dale Ahlquist, the foremost Chesterton expert in the country and president of the American Chesterton Society.

We’re all grown ups here so no whining if you don’t win. We aren’t poetry experts but we can count to seven so we will be able to identify poorly formatted Haiku.