After a year that couldn't be worse

With blows to health, happiness and purse

But we've got a vaccine

So maybe this means

We can ask you to send us some verse

To celebrate National Poetry Month in April, we're holding a limerick contest. We're looking for something humorous or amusing that comments on our hoped-for emergence from the pandemic and a return to normalcy. It should be an original limerick in the familiar five-line format with an AABBA rhyming structure.

Here's how to enter: Send an e-mail to limerick@startribune.com by midnight April 11. You can submit up to three limericks per person. They should be written in the body of the e-mail. No attachments, please. It must be your own work and a limerick, not a sonnet or haiku. Remember, this is a family newspaper.

We'll publish the best of the best on April 24. The winning poet will have their poem recited by a surprise celebrity orator.

This virus, a great equalizer,

Has made us all sadder but wiser

But we'll see a resurrection

After an injection

From Moderna, J&J or Pfizer