Recently, I entered an Arts and Sciences competition at an SCA event. The category was Performing Arts, Original Composition. So I wrote a sonnet in the Elizabethan form circa 1590s-1600 (commonly called the Shakespearean sonnet style, although as I showed in my documentation, he did not create this form, he simply popularized it). While I didn’t win anything, people in the audience enjoyed it. And my real goal is to use it as an example for an Arts and Sciences competition I’m running later in the year where the category is Performing Arts, Sonnet in a Period Style.
Here’s my poem:
To an Arts & Sciences Entrant, On Documentation
To document one’s art or sciences entry, it is not hard:
Simply tell how you made the thing, step by step.
Start with the period and place, this detail don’t discard.
Then describe your materials and tools, how you prepped —
Did you use modern machines or use your own hands?
Were historical materials available or out of reach?
Explain your reasoning, your research, what you planned.
We cannot read your mind, so your paper must speak.
It’s nice to include pictures that show the item in process,
But, even better, make note of the books and resources
That informed your research — history is the root of this contest!
Do tell us all what you studied, the classes, the courses.
Finally, please type up your documentation, copies make three,
So each judge can read. Now it wasn’t that hard, I don’t think, at least.