Iron Poet VII

[Vaynor]

Welcome to Iron Poet, Round Seven!

Rules

1) Only the first 16 respondants expressing a desire to compete will be the contestants. It IS a first come, first served basis.

2) The contest will consist of a number of rounds pitting 2 randomly determined authors against each other until only one contestant remains (winner).

3) Each matchup will be given a theme, picture, article, subject, or other criteria to write on, and the poem submitted must match this as much as possible. Stricter following of prompts may help you win.

4) The winner as determined by a panel of judges will advance to the next round.

5) In case of a judge or judges not posting judgments in a timely manner, I will adjudicate and determine the winner.

6) The poems will be limited to 1000 words with a 50 word minimum

7) The entries will be poems. All forms of poetry are acceptable, as long as they meet the required word lengths. If your chosen style is too short, you are free to make two of them, i.e., you may make a limerick with 48 words, then add another limerick, still following the same theme, to reach the required word length.

8) All posted deadlines will given in as much time zones as possible, as labeled.

9) No late entries will be accepted. If you don't post or fail to post by the deadline, you will be disqualified. A 5 minute grace period is allowed. You have one freebie per contest, use it wisely. This allows you to be up to half a day late with your poem (no more).

10) If your entry does not include the article(s) and the picture(s), you will most likely lose because of it, however this will not disqualify your poem, as poems are judged on best use of the prompts.

11) The judgments are final. What the judges decide is how it is.

12) The entries will only include content suitable for the Playground.

13) I will rule on anything I have forgotten or needs clarification which is brought to my attention

14) The contestants will have 1 week (roughly) from the bracket posting to get their entries posted.

Participants:
1. Devigod
2. Phoekun
3. Alarra
4. Helgraf
5. Felixaar
6. Rankrath
7. Flame Master Axel
8. Thurge Namor
9. JoseB
10. Cryptana
11. Rutskarn
12. Elvaris
13. Devon 68G
14. Wadledo
15. Trumane
16. Mewdo

Judges:
1. Kneenibble
2. Crimson Angel
3. AJWB

Please PM me if you'd like to be informed when future contests begin (I will add you to the list).

[Devigod]

I'm in! (Woo first to post!)
Sign me up as a contestant, please.

[PhoeKun]

I am going to regret this. I am going to, at some point, produce something of inferior quality or fail to produce anything at all. And I will feel horrible about it. Also, I'm breaking my rule about only entering even numbered contests.

...Still, I need this. Please give me a contestant's slot.

[Alarra]

I would prefer to be a contestant this time. Unless you can't get enough judges, then I suppose I could switch....but I aaaaaaalways judge, so someone else should this time. :smallsmile:

[Helgraf]

I vill kompete.

[Felixaar]

Geeze, we haven't even been up for a day and theres already four stellar competitors who could trounce me any day of the week.

And yet, I'm still going to ask you to sign me up as a contestant.

[rankrath]

oh, a poetry contest, sounds like fun. Sign me up please.

[The Extinguisher]

Sign me up. I feel bad about not finishing up the last one. Damn you food!

Anyway, should be fun. Can't wait.

[thurge namor]

ill join... should be fun

[JoseB]

OK, let's try again... Why not? :) It will help me get more practice in the language! :)

I am joining!

[Cryptana]

Alarra told me about these contests, so I thought I should try. (Hope she doesn't mind :smallcool:)

Please put me down as a contestant.

[Kneenibble]

I offer myself as adjudicant.

[Rutskarn]

It's on like Diddy Kong. Just call me contestant number Rutskarn.

aftur ull, i kan be kultured.

[Helgraf]

Alarra told me about these contests, so I thought I should try. (Hope she doesn't mind :smallcool:)

Please put me down as a contestant.

Now now, 'larra wouldn't have told you if she didn't want you to take part. No worries.

[Alarra]

Alarra told me about these contests, so I thought I should try. (Hope she doesn't mind :smallcool:)

Please put me down as a contestant.

Yay! People I know in real life joining the playground! :smallbiggrin:
Of course I don't mind, silly.
*warns people* She's a really good writer too. :smalltongue:

[Felixaar]

Oh no! My chances have gone from Doomed to Very Doomed!

[Elvaris]

My hat, she is thrown in the ring, yes? I fling my hat into the ring. Thusly. Fling.

(Don't mind me, but do enter me as a contestant.)

[The Extinguisher]

Oh no! My chances have gone from Doomed to Very Doomed!

Tell me about it.
*gulp*

[Cryptana]

*warns people* She's a really good writer too. :smalltongue:

:smallredface: Aw, shucks! Thanks! It's been a while since I've done poetry though.

[Devigod]

I offer myself as adjudicant.

Adjudicant=Judge. (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=define%3A+adjudicate&btnG=Search)

Just putting that out there.

I'm looking forward to this though.

[Vaynor]

Adjudicant=Judge. (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=define%3A+adjudicate&btnG=Search)

Just putting that out there.

I'm looking forward to this though.

See, this is why I should actually read your guys' posts.

[Felixaar]

Woah... wait... we're supposed to read peoples posts?

Dear Steve! All my judgings have been folly!*

*may not actually be true. may actually be a fairly decent judge. maybe.

[Devigod]

See, this is why I should actually read your guys' posts.

No worries. I just like to help oil the machine. At least you put the whole damn thing together! I thank you for that.

[Rutskarn]

Come on, everyone, step right up and take your beating!

I mean, and participate in this very enriching exchange of verse.

And then take your beating.

[Devon 68G]

o o I wanna join!

[Rutskarn]

Come on, you lot! Just three more slots to fill!

[Devigod]

Don't you mean four slots?

[Rutskarn]

...14, 15 and 16. No, three slots.

[Alarra]

Then technically 5, cause there's still two judges spots left....which we reeeeeeeeally need people.

Oh, an idea was suggested to me this evening to combat this whole problem we seem to have of people only wanting to participate and never judge. What would people think of if: once someone has participated in three contests, they are required to judge at least one contest before they're allowed to participate again. It would be nice to get some of the contestants to be judges once in awhile.

[Felixaar]

That could be an idea, 'Larra... but it seems a little harsh? I don't know. Just my thinkerin's.

I'd like to remain a contestant, but judge's arent filled within a week, I'll switch over.

[truemane]

The problem with that idea, I think Alarra, is that it runs the risk of restricting potential participants. And anything that does that is to be avoided. We have as hard a time getting dedicated writers as we do judges.

I think a better idea would be to ask each contestant to judge one or more brackets as well as writing. Not their own, of course.

Make the goal to have... say... three or five judgements per bracket. Have as many full-time judges as you can get to sign up. And then fill in the holes by asking writers to judge one or more brackets.

Would take a little bit of organizing. Would require asking which writers are comfortable judging. Would require Vaynor keep an eye on things to watch out of for any monkey-shines.

But it would allow for a large pool of judges and (perhaps more importantly) a wide range of perspectives and judging styles.

[rankrath]

I'd be willing to change to a judge, if needed.

[Rutskarn]

I think we need some more poets before we start worrying about judges.

[Alarra]

That also sounds like a good option, Truemane.

[CrimsonAngel]

I've never taken
a poetry class.
I couldn't make a rhyme
to save my... butt.

:smalleek:

[Rutskarn]

Join anyway, CA. We need warm bodies more than we need rhyming acumen.

Oh yeah, and blah blah poetry doesn't have to rhyme blah. My poetry is non-rhyming myself.

[CrimsonAngel]

"Warm body"? Are you saying I'm hot? :smalleek:

[JoseB]

Suggestion re: lack of judges...

Given that those who judge have to be people with some experience (or something like that)... Maybe you could make it so that the winner(s) of a contest are pipped as judges for the next?

I don't know, just floating this idea for general consideration. Maybe it is stupid, but well...

Just my 2 eurocent!

[truemane]

It's a sort-of tradition that the winner of one round judge in the next, but it's nothing concrete.

I just think the trouble with making rules that restrict who enters and when can backfire, since if someone wins a round, and then doesn't want to judge, they might just not enter. And then the contest is down a talented and dedicated writer. Not everyone likes judging and no one should ever be forced to do so.

But if you ask 13 contestants to volunteer, I bet you'd get enough to agree to judge a bracket or two so that everyone could have at least three good readings.

And Rutskarn, I respectfully disagree. You can run a contest with 13 contestants. But no matter what you do, you really NEED at least three judges. If you get 16 to sign up, and still only have one judge, then you're in worse trouble than if you got three judges and 13 contestants.

[Rutskarn]

trumane: It's really more a matter of filling two slots as opposed to filling three.

Crimson:...which response is more likely to lower your inhibitions and persuade you to join?

[Kneenibble]

Hey, CrimsonAngel:

Even if you're out the first round, consider the value in giving your poetry air to breathe and the humble manure of generous (and like) minds in which to grow. Even if you're out the first round, this is a space of welcome to share your words. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain. I encourage you most heartily to participate.

[CrimsonAngel]

Um... Sure? :smallconfused:

[wadledo]

Yo'.
...........I suppose I'll sign up.

[truemane]

.....hmmmm.....

*THROES OF INDECISION*

If you guys can find another judge or two, or deal with the judging situation in some other positive fashion, I could be your 16th contestant.

If that's agreeable to the multitudes, that is.

[AJWB]

So, this idea may sound crazy, but I got to thinking about it in the most recent Iron Author. What if the judges were the contestants themselves? Upon everyone submitting, all of the poems are posted by whoever is moderating, and everyone submits a judgment on each of the battles that is not their own.

Example using names chosen at random from the thread:

Round 2:
AJWB vs truename
Rutskarn vs JoseB
CrimsonAngel vs Alarra
Felixaar vs Demigod

The poems are of course submitted anonymously, but I would see my poem versus truename's poem and know not to place a judgment on that bracket. I would proceed to post my judgment of Rutskarn/JoseB, CrimsonAngel/Alarra, and Felixaar/Demigod

This way, no one has to be "stuck" judging (because everyone is stuck together :smalltongue:), and if someone flakes out judging, they just get kicked from the contest and life goes on. As contestants, we read all of the other stories anyway, why not throw in our own 2 cents?

In addition, if you lose a round, you can stick on as a judge to help break ties and stuff. Previous contestants would also be needed to help judge the final bracket.

So long as everything remains anonymous and in spoiler brackets, I think this system might really work. If I explained anything weirdly, let me know and I can elaborate more.

Buuut, if you decide not to adopt this strategy of judging, I'd be willing to judge this Iron Poet.

[The Extinguisher]

It's easy to see the problems with judging your own round, but not many people see the problem with judging other rounds. But there is. I'm a judge, and I'm also a contestent. I'm judging a round between two poets. Whoever wins will go on to face me. Who am I more likely to vote for? The better poet or the one I can easily beat?

Judging while in a contest is just bad form. It leads to skewed results 99% of the time. We like to think we won't, but that's just what happens.

[CrimsonAngel]

..... Allara..... :smalleek:

[truemane]

AJWB:
We just finished having a discussion about this very thing up at ther top of the page. Scroll up and see. I'm in favour of the idea. I don't even think that we have to put any real effort into maintaining anonymity. I don't see that it added anything to the current Iron Author.



I'm judging a round between two poets. Whoever wins will go on to face me. Who am I more likely to vote for? The better poet or the one I can easily beat?

Maybe I'm too much the idealist, but I really and genuinely can't see that becoming a big problem here. I think the history of these contests has been one of relative harmony and cooperation and the motivation for the writers has always seemed to have been quality feedback and not winning.

Obviously, three full-time judges is the ideal. Well, five would be ideal but that hasn't worked yet and I don't see it working any time soon.

I think that, if we were to decide that every poem shoud have three critical readings, we could arrange that without seriously undermining the integrity of the process.

But it's Vaynor's call at any rate. Perhaps he has a secret cache of judges.

I wouldn't put it past him...

[AJWB]

My idea was more of an elaboration of the idea at the top in which judges don't exist at all, just writers. I guess that's what I get for skimming (something I will assuredly NOT do as a judge :smallwink:). I agree with you about the spirit of the competition as well. I joined Iron Author to get feedback on writing and to test my mettle against other writers. I would hope that most of the people in this competition would judge fairly so that they would have the opportunity and privilege to have their stuff compete with writers who may be even a bit above one's perceived caliber. If we can keep that spirit constant, then there is certainly no need for anonymity, but I can see people having problems because of the reasons Axel presented.

I've probably spoken too much on the subject already, as it should of course be up to people who are actually involved at this point. I'm still ready to judge if needed.

[Alarra]

While the idea of anonymity hasn't necessarily added anything, I can see how it would be useful in certain situations and with certain judge/contestant pairs. None of the people judging these contests are going to intentionally allow the author of the story or poem to influence them, but sometimes it can be difficult to not do that subconsciously. For example, my husband used to judge these contests all the time, and had difficulty knowing whether he was being objective when a contest came up where I was a contestant. It's not impossible to think that there are other outside relationships between posters here that may influence their judgments. It can also sometimes be difficult to only judge the current work and not base any of your opinions on the author's previous works.

[Rutskarn]

Let's give this thread a solid kick in the bumps. Worked before.

Alright, guys, we're just two judges and one contestant away from launch! Let's get this thing together.

[CrimsonAngel]

Could I be a judje instead of a contestant?

[Vaynor]

But it's Vaynor's call at any rate. Perhaps he has a secret cache of judges.

I wouldn't put it past him...

Oh noes! My secrets! *hides his extra judges*

But in all seriousness, 2 more contestants, 1 more judge (and if we have an extra contestant I'll have Alarra switch over to being a judge).

[truemane]

I think AJWB offered to judge. And I offered to contest, assuming no one else could be found. And so we ar perhaps lacking but a single contestant in order to begin.

And if there's an extra contestant, let poor Alarra compete. I'll bow out if we get to that point, or perhaps be an alternate.

[PhoeKun]

I have been holding this in for the sake of dignity, but in the end I say "nuts to that".

Truemane! You're alive! You're around! Squee! *shamelessly tackles* ^-^

[Felixaar]

Don't let Alarra judge! She's too good of a poet! if you need someone else as a Judge, swap me over, seriously!

[truemane]

I have been holding this in for the sake of dignity, but in the end I say "nuts to that".

Truemane! You're alive! You're around! Squee! *shamelessly tackles* ^-^

Awww. Hey Phoe. I missed you too. I've been lurking about on here for a little while now. And I'm in a sort-of pause in my personal projects. So I thought some poetry might be just the thing.

And then I saw that you had joined up already, and that sealed the deal.

*Accepts tackle-hug and returns*

[Cryptana]

My idea was more of an elaboration of the idea at the top in which judges don't exist at all, just writers.

Well said! New to the site so I've never seen a contest set up like this.

We don't have to know anything about Order of the Stick, do we? Cause I haven't quite found my stick or my order. :smalleek:

[Rutskarn]

The Order of the Stick has about as much to do with Iron Poet as the book Macroeconomics has to do with a bronze cheese grater.

[truemane]

Well said! New to the site so I've never seen a contest set up like this.

We don't have to know anything about Order of the Stick, do we? Cause I haven't quite found my stick or my order. :smalleek:

No. You don't. The only connection this contest has with the Order of the Stick is that it happens to take place on the same website. And is bound by the same rules as the rest of the website (no discussing politics, no religion, no flaming, no discussing when the next comic os coming out, etc).

All you have to do is write a poem in response to a set of prompts, which might be a word or a picture or both.

It's MAD fun. Come and play with us...

[Felixaar]

The Order of the Stick has about as much to do with Iron Poet as the book Macroeconomics has to do with a bronze cheese grater.

Two weeks later, owning Bronze Cheese Grates became a hyooooge fad.

[Rutskarn]

Macroeconomics, unfortunately, languors in abject unpopularity.

Wait, did I say unfortunately?

[Vaynor]

Ok then, 1 more contestant needed. Come on, poets, we need you!

[Felixaar]

Macroeconomics, unfortunately, languors in abject unpopularity.

Wait, did I say unfortunately?

Yes, well....

*SMOKE-BOMB!*

DO DO DOO-DO-DO DO DO DOO-DO!

[Mewdo]

I'm definately in! I really enjoy writing. This'll be fun and great practice. Thanks for telling me about it, Felixaar!

[Felixaar]

Glad you took up my invitation, Mewdo :smallbiggrin:

Okay team, I think we're full up, then. Game on!

[Rutskarn]

Friggin' finally.

Let's get our poetry on.

[truemane]

The undead archeologist speaks truth!

It is indeed time to poetry it up OLD SCHOOL!

[Rutskarn]

In the words of one of the great poets of our time:

The Pen, The Page, Lyric, Rampage, Word up.

[The Extinguisher]

Boo-yah! Chest bumps all around.

Let's poem like it's 1999. Again.

[Vaynor]

Ok, I'll have the contest up tonight. Sorry for the delay, I went on a trip this weekend.

[Felixaar]

Not to tell you your business, Vay, but when you do, you'd better make sure to take the (Recruiting!) part of topic title off :smallsmile:

[Vaynor]

Iron Poet VII: Round 1

Phoekun vs. Cryptana: Apocalypse
Helgraf vs. Trumane: Dance
Mewdo vs. Rankrath: Insects
Felixaar vs. Alarra: Myth
Elvaris vs. JoseB: Scents
Devon68G vs. Thurge Namor: Weather
Devigod vs. Wadledo: Island
Rutskarn vs. Flame Master Axel: Jealousy

Deadline: The midnight between April 8th, 11:59 PM (EST) and April 9th, 12:01 AM (EST).

[Rutskarn]

Alright, Flaxel, let's do this.

May your rhymes be sublime, and poise to your prose.

[Felixaar]

So, it begins...

Felix Vs. Alarra: Defeat of a Mod (I hope)

Bring it, blondie! I can kick the ass of a pregnant woman any day of the week!

...I feel bad now.

[Cryptana]

Just a quick question...are we supposed to email / PM the poem in to Vaynor?

[truemane]

No, you post it here in the thread. But you put it in SPOILER tags.

So it would look like this when you type it (just remove the space between the 'R' and the closing bracket)...



Poem

Poem poem poem poem poem,
Poem poem poem poem poem.
Poem poem poem,
Poem poem poem,
There once was a man from Nantuckett.
-truemane 2009



And like this when you post it.


Beauty: A Gradual Canticle

Phoekun was a very nice lass
Who never talked back or gave sass
She was always so kind,
And when seen from behind,
She had a really hot...

...singing voice.

-truemane 2009



EVERYTHING about the poems should be in Spoiler tags. Discussion, commentary, opinions, anything. You don't want the judges to read anything that could influence their decsions. If you need any help at all, please feel free to ask.

[Felixaar]

*snort* Truemane, that post should be quoted and put on the front page, if only so that we never forget that Limerick.

[Mewdo]

Well, I wrote it, showed it to people, revised it, and then pit it back like it was. So I suppose I might as well post it. ...Okay, I gotta' be honest. I just like having the first entry. Anyway, here is my entry for Round 1 of Iron Poet VII, with the topic of "Insects."


Insects

These insects have taken my freedom.
These insects are taking my life.
These insects have no care
But to cause misery and strife.

These insects have no value.
They are small, insignificant beings
That only think they have worth
In the grand scheme of things

These insects are only men
On a world that just spins and spins
And does not spare a thought of them
Or their horrible sins.

These men are only insects.
What else can I think of those
That took away my right to be free?
But, if these men are only insects,
What does that make me?

-Mew(µ)

[Kneenibble]

I haven't read your entry, Mewdo, nor will I until the deadline has passed and all poems are submitted -- and so this is a general, rather than a personal suggestion.

I highly recommend that you do not submit your poem this early. If nothing else, put your poem away until the 8th, then read it again and give yourself a little while to finish editing.

Please trust me. Four or five more days to work on a poem that cooked for only a couple of days will make significant difference. Editing, and even raw time are SO important.

[Rutskarn]

While I think you're probably right, Neeby, I get a very "finished" feel from my poem as of now. I wrote most of it as soon as I saw the prompt, and it still reads pretty well (which usually doesn't happen with my writing).

Anyway, here's my poem. Hope you all enjoy it.


Dreams of a Shattered Dream

A bitter knot of tangled guts, and bile on the tongue
Jars of venom, stored up on the shelf
Private poison, bone-deep sickness choking at my lungs
Hatred of the enemy, and self

Why, I whisper, why, must my virtue drown and die
Choking on the brine of jealousy
It isn’t fair to me, that my hated enemy
Can strip away my good will fatally

The cozy little wisdom of my cozy little life
Tender flowers grown from naivety
Such was it imparted not to wish another strife
Let the victories of others simply be

Never wish another’s bundle, simply take your own
In good will we are noblest, most pure
Do not entertain such jealousy, so base and plain
The sickness of the soul has little cure
Upon such thoughts I rested, never dreaming they’d be tested
Never dreaming of the shame that was in store.

She was like a garden, and I tended her with care
Coaxing the blooms to sigh and reach
The hunger for her gnawed at me, it drew away my breath
Hunger for the love I might beseech

So came the day, the dream, when the sun would soar and scream
Together we would be upon that day
Until he came, a parasite, a grimy-feathered crow
He sang to her, and then bore her away

The hole bored through my soul, a dark abyss lonely and cold
Now fills with boiling pitch and blazing shame
My perfect world destroyed by a bitter bastard’s ploy
My nemesis, who doesn’t know my name

The lonely days are empty as a dusty china cup,
My companions my emotions, and my scar
Hated, bitterness, and all, I wrap these things into a shawl
And shudder violently as I watch from afar

But things, they won’t grow better, and my shawl is but a fetter
And I’m fettered to a worthless cratered pit
Someday I’ll break this chain, and then I will be free again
I’ll have a brand-new garden, fence in front of it

What I mean to say is though I'm miserable today
And my hatred for him isn't soon to die
I contemplate the day I let my hatred lift away
Perhaps that'll be the day I finally cry

[truemane]

Just remember that you can edit your entry at any time, and as many times as your wish, until the deadline. Judges should probably refrain from reading the entries until the deadline has passed, just in case there ARE significant changes.

I will also echo Kneenibble's words that time in a box is essential for good writing of any kind. He is one of the best poets on these boards and his obvious dedication to the craft gives weight to his words.

So, poets, it is highly recommended that you have another peek at your entry a day or so before the deadline, just to see if anything needs tweaking.

[The Extinguisher]

While I agree that time and editing are very important to the process, and I will be editing and changing my entry as time goes, but as I work on the 8th, I probably shouldn't let my poem sit on my desk. :smallbiggrin:


Prompt: Jealousy

"Your only love"

I wonder
I wonder how many days I've seen you
I wonder how many times you've been held
by someone who isn't me
I wonder how many times you've never noticed
when I've tried to hold onto you
I wonder

what goes through your head
when I touch you
I think of the days
you've spent with me
I think of the many times I've been there for you
I think of the times you've never noticed
I think of the times I wonder

I've always just say idly by
I've watched you throw your life away
I've seen your rebirths and evolution
I've seen your deaths and desolation
I was there with your ups
I was there with your downs
and still you never notice
still
I wonder

what would you do without me
what would I do without you
how could you ignore me like this
why can you leave me like this
every damn time
and never even return
still you do it again
and again
and I try
but you never notice
I need you
no

you need me
you will never need another
why do you bother
why can't you see
why am I pushed to the side
why don't you listen

I wonder
is it love
or are you just trying to hurt me?

[thurge namor]

um... here it is... woohoo.


Prompt: Weather
The Storm of Ages
All of God’s fury
Unleashed in one outbreak of rain
And as water pours down my face
I can’t help but wonder what I did
To fall out of grace
With the most high being.
Light flashes, and thunder claps
All while fear ratta-tap-taps
Against the window to my soul.
Emotions flowing down the street
As a downpour becomes a flood
And anger leads way into wrath
A wrath so great, all I can do is cower in anticipation
Of what it to come.

Then, when all seems lost
Wrath breaks
And leaves a hole in the cloud.
Sunlight streams through
As fury breaks away, leaving only forgiveness.

Wash away my sins
And leave my soul pure.
I welcome you with open arms
Storm of Ages.



I dunno why i wrote this like this... I had all kinds of other ideas, like a storming heart or raining fire (i actually wrote this one but it wasn't very weathery) but i wrote this one about God and forgiveness. Completely not my style of writing, in subject or in actual flow. Even my friends agree that it doesn't really sound like my other stuff. I hope you enjoy(ed) it. Thanks for reading.

[Vaynor]

Does anybody know why the title of this thread won't change when I edit the first post? Did something change and no one told me?

[Felixaar]

I think if it's been more than a month since the OP, you're not allowed to change the title. I'll PM 'larra and she'll take care of it.

[Vaynor]

I think if it's been more than a month since the OP, you're not allowed to change the title. I'll PM 'larra and she'll take care of it.

Fixed, sweet.

[rankrath]

Well, here is my poem. Enjoy, or not, your choice.


prompt: Insects
Insects rule the world

Insects rule the world,
a wise man once said.
And he is right.
For what animal
is so important to us
and yet so devastating?

While pleasing as the butterfly
they are useful as the bee
yet annoying as the fly
and deadly as the locust.

And what creature
demands respect
from all others?
For a spiders web
is only for the fly
the cow's tail likewise
a flower's pollen,
and it's nectar
exist only for the bee.

No, man may build and strut upon
this brown ball he calls home
but it is insects that run it
as the wise man once said
and he is very wise indeed.

[Vaynor]

Approximately 1 day remaining.

[Devigod]

Poem Finished. I'm probably going to be in the car all day (and night) tomorrow, so I have to post this now.
Prompt: Island

Desolation

Oh see the rising, golden crown
That fills the empty plain
Oh see the gath’ring blackish smoke
That calls the choking rain
Oh stare across this roiling dune
A thing of sea and sand
The water’s edge beneath the moon
Strangles a piece of land
Stuck here are you, the sky a dome
And yet the waters deep
Doth tempt thy thirst and froth and foam
And then from thy lips sweep
But to what cause, and for what end
Can oceans be so cruel?
Blue tapestries that thy heart rend
Make thee a stranded fool
For you are gone, and you are lost
A marooned toy at sea
A pounding heart, forever tossed
You’re left to kneel and plea
And here stand I, hold I your fate
The waters can I lift
And yet I don’t, is this thing hate-
To leave thee at the rift?


Some commentary:
Probably not my best work. I had a very similar topic of oceans in just the last Iron Poet, so maybe I'd already spent most of my juice on it... nevertheless I'm optimistic about the piece. Read from it what you will, in the end, it's about purposeless spite.

[Felixaar]

Oop! I'll get something in later tonight, promise.

Keeping in mind that I know nothing about poetry...

Prompt: Myth

Heroes Of The Present
by Felixaar


An age from now, in a world much older
Will beauty be in the eye of the beholder?
Or will our descendents look back at us with distaste
And run from their history at most frightening pace?

Will we be glorious heroes of the past
Or will the riches of these days fade fast?
Will our great buildings, our stuctures, stand tall
Or will they, like all things, eventually fall?

In an age of disposable nappies, and plastic forks
A pretty voice it surely wont be, when our history talks
What is a shopping mall, to the colliseum?
The slums that we hold today, what will they be then?

So come on all, lets work together
And build a history that lasts forever
Something that any storm, it can weather
Not in buildings, but names
Not in buildings, but names.

Enjoy, lads!

[PhoeKun]

Apocalypse

The Way the World Ends

Twilight wanders slowly down the street,
Breathing in the moments before the night.
It happens across an open window
And lets itself inside without thinking about it,
Mingling and playing with the gentle glow of a television.

They dance, their delicate romance unseen
By the woman drifting off to sleep on the couch.
Her head falls forward onto her chest,
The motion jolting her awake again.

And in that single motion, the moment is over,
Twilight vanishes, the room suddenly darker than expected.
The woman sighs wistfully and changes the channel.
Her phone rings.

"I'm sorry."
She says nothing, staring at the screen.
"Hello? I know you're there. This is important."
She yawns and shuts off her tv.
"You haven't heard?"
She hesitates. "Heard what?"
"He's dead. He's gone."

In the pitch black, the world shatters.

... No comment.

[JoseB]

OK, here goes... :)

Scents


Madeleine...
Aroma that brings back forgotten joy;
And again
I feel what it felt like to be a boy.

In my heart
Emotions brought to life by that sweet scent,
Like a dart
That pierces through my soul with kind torment.

In my mind
The memories that rush like a wild flood;
Intertwined
With the gold of the past, and with the mud.

Oh that scent
That brought my soul to life with such a start!
Heaven-sent
To give me back my youth, at least in part!

Oh the joy!
Oh memories that made me happy again!
I enjoy
That sweetly-scented, humble madeleine.


(I guess people will know what my inspiration for this was).

[Cryptana]

Prompt: Apocalypse



Eschatology

The end came
after much watch-ticking,
each click of the secondhand
a new link to the weighty
chain between us.

Red-shifting into infidelity,
only your will could hold
me in your world
like a loose net of atoms
that others see as solid.

I read the books.
They said to look for signs
encrypted in a toxic flow of insults,
the rise of a despot
in every clenched fist.

But when I opened the door,
there was no rain,
no red heavens,
no rage or ruin.
It didn't even hurt...much...

A rectangle of sunshine erupted between us.
“Fresh air, the friend of corruption,”
you quipped jealously, my dear horseman,
with a face the color of bruises,
sallow in the center, then darker and darker.

The room pulled at you,
blurring your edges,
an event horizon
in the bang of the door.
It was Rapture.

The rapture of losing everything
and waking up to a life wiped clean.


~Cryptana, April 2009

[wadledo]

Prompt: Island

Tidal Shifts
As one walks along the beach,
Pondering treasure, and the deeps,
One may happen to see(off to the side,)
Tiny islands, lost in the tides.

Do you know the stories of these tiny lands?
How they were created at dawn,
And are lost with the sun.
Tales of kings and pawns,
Legends of sword and gun,
Epics beneath the shifting sands.

What if I told you,
That these stories are true,
And all your dreams lie just beyond view,
And to walk down that path,
To see the islands in the tide,
One must put aside wrath,
And bury pride?

If I told you these things,
And of men who were kings,
And lost, precious rings,
Lying golden beneath the shifting sands,
And of a world rotting beneath the western sun,
With all things forever undone,
Would you say "He misunderstands"?

[truemane]

And here it is. I hope you enjoy it. And I hope it CRUSHES the competition into the GROUND!!!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

....

....

....

Okay. I'm done now. Good luck, Helgraf.
:smalltongue:

Prompt: Dance

Wake

*YOINK*

[Elvaris]

Prompt: Scents


Our first date was at the cafe.
We didn't talk.
We held our chais to our faces,
Smiled tentative smiles between sips,
And stared into each other's eyes.
Now every time I smell cinnamon
I see your eyes,
And I can't help but smile.
So when you ask
Why I have 'that goofy grin'
over a snickerdoodle,
It's because your eyes
And your smile
Are as beautiful now
As they were on that day
In that cafe,
Behind your chai
Surrounded by the scent
of cinnamon.
And because "snickerdoodle" is just fun to say.

[Felixaar]

*reads Alarra's poem*

...ahh, stuff :smallannoyed: :smalltongue:

[PhoeKun]

*reads Alarra's poem*

...ahh, stuff :smallannoyed: :smalltongue:

Now now, none of that until the results are in. :smalltongue:

Speaking of which, there's a lot I want to say about my submission, but I won't until after things are finished here. I still feel very strongly about saying anything that would influence impressions...

[wadledo]

I'm almost annoyed Devigod didn't show up, seeing how I'm actualy somewhat proud of my poem this time around.:smallsigh:

[truemane]

Preach it, brother. I also haz no opponent. And Helgraf isn't a bad poet, all things considered. I was looking forward to competing with him.

Well... 10 minutes left. And then 5 minutes grace. And then the Offical Once per Contest 12 Hour Extension.

So there's time...

[PhoeKun]

I'm almost annoyed Devigod didn't show up, seeing how I'm actualy somewhat proud of my poem this time around.:smallsigh:

Uh... he did show up. Look again. >.>

[wadledo]

Uh... he did show up. Look again. >.>

Ha!
Oh man, I can't believe I missed that.
Right at the bottom of the page, and with a huge sig, too.:smallbiggrin:

[Felixaar]

Now now, none of that until the results are in. :smalltongue:

Speaking of which, there's a lot I want to say about my submission, but I won't until after things are finished here. I still feel very strongly about saying anything that would influence impressions...

I know that when I judge, I never read "commentary". A poem, I think, should be able to stand for itself. It's always nice to talk about it, but I don't consider that in my calculations.

'course, that's just me :smalltongue:

[Zeb The Troll]

I know that when I judge, I never read "commentary". A poem, I think, should be able to stand for itself. It's always nice to talk about it, but I don't consider that in my calculations.

'course, that's just me :smalltongue:I feel the same way. When I judge, if I don't get the poem without exposition, that has a negative impact on my impression of it. Of course, sometimes that's a failing on my part more than the author's for not knowing the context (i.e. I don't know Shakespeare inside and out. That's my problem, not the poet's.).

[Kneenibble]

No poet has the benefit of their blurb in publishing, unless they're famous and get their own chapbook: but even then, if anything, it's a thematic introduction to the collection. I, also, will not be reading anybody's commentary on their own submission -- and, just so yous know, I will not be reading any responses to my judgements other than "thank you," or "**** off" (so please spoiler anything more). That kind of tacence has made the best kind of editing experience I've engaged in from both sides of the table.

Too much exposition, or defense of one's own poem seems a symptom to me, to paraphrase Auden, of trying to live Faust-like forever on the work, rather than allowing death and seeking rebirth from within it, y'know -- like Gandalf.

And now, a few days for prudent adjudence please...

[Zeb The Troll]

I do read the commentary afterwords. It tends to be a good time and place for dialog about "what could have been done better".

[Alarra]

Hey....quick question/favor to ask of any of you literary minded people over here...

The Iron Author contest has had the final round entries posted for over a month and the judges seem to have disappeared off the face of the earth. Would any of you be willing to pop over here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=93620) and judge the two stories so that the contest can end? Three people would be great, and we would really appreciate it. :smallsmile:

[Felixaar]

On it! Apache, jump on it, jump on it...

[thurge namor]

So... when does judging begin?

[Devigod]

Whenever the judges finish their judgments. Typically we give them a couple of weeks before we start raising eyebrows. The first round is usually the toughest for them seeing as it has the most pieces... though there is something to be said for the higher level of pressure to judge well for the later and "more important" rounds.

Give them their time.

[Rutskarn]

Or, like me, try to spend days at a time forgetting the contest exists. Easy on the patience, as well as the "refresh" button.

[PhoeKun]

Then get excited when you see there are new posts, go to check, and find out its just people talking about how there haven't been judgments yet.

Cry deeply.

[Rutskarn]

Dammit, right back at you, Funky.

[truemane]

Gah! Will you people please stop lighting up my New Message indicator and raising my hopes only to dash them to the ground like a cookie jar from a high shelf...

I think we should make it a rule that anyone doing any posting in between the poems going up and the judgements going up should include a judgement of some kind, just to prevent any more damage to our fragile poets' natures.

So...

PhoeKun?

I would like to compliment you on your signature. Jillian Goldin is excellent.

See? Not so hard. And everybody's happy.

[PhoeKun]

Ohmygosh! You... you know of Jilian Goldin! Truemane, you continue to find new ways of being awesome. I wish to hug you and never let go.

...It makes me sad that I have to change my sig for a little while.

[Rutskarn]

Okay, new rule, huh?

...

True Stories is a highly underrated film.

[Kneenibble]

Sorry to tease you but never please you, this post does not contain my judgements yet.

Around papers, exams, work, and spring gardening, I have been reading and judging, and I am nearly finished my comments and decisions. Please expect them by tomorrow evening at the latest, possibly even later tonight, depending on how the rest of this paper goes. I trust my fellow judges are also close to publishing their own feedback.

Some lovely reading this round, dear poets.

[Rutskarn]

Neeby, I'm not exactly sure why, but as of late I've read all of your posts in the voice of Stephen Fry.

I guess that's a compliment.

Anyway, take your time with the judgments, peoples. We'll keep.

[Kneenibble]

Round 1:
About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters: how well they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along
(from Auden's "Musée des Beaux Arts")

(I ask questions in my commentary... please don't answer them.)

Apocalypse

Phoe-kun
The Way the World Ends

The poem has subtlety, it creeps in like the twilight. I can see the simple atmospheric aesthetic you're shooting for, it's as soft as a room lit by a tv, with a depth beneath like the darkness after. The idea and its narrative progression are tight: the motion of twilight from outside, through the window, over the drowsy lady, and then into darkness. The changes in light guide my reader's sense of apocalypse -- darker, and darker, and darker, leading down to the end. It's an oblique approach to the theme that works. I really appreciate the ambiguous finality of your clincher.

What I want most is more economy of language. Phrases like "...without thinking about it". "And lets itself inside" would be more powerful alone. It's editorial and inactive (the light mingles, plays, and dances with the tv's light. I'd choose one action). Same with the phrase "the motion jolting her awake again." You've chosen a minimal narrative, so keep things breezy and active. "and jolts herself awake" would be my suggestion. "Twilight vanishes, the room suddenly darker than expected." -- expected by whom? again, editorializing. Bogs down the dexterity you need. & the phrase "sighs wistfully" is downright trite, to be blunt. I offer these suggestions but there's other very lovely phrases you oughta keep -- "happens across an open window" "they dance, their delicate romance unseen" & the end (although would "the world shatters in the black" be more powerful?) It seems to me that you have an ear for sound, but you're being too precious with your language. Trim.

So what about the phone call? She's tired, sure, but does anybody pick up the phone and not say anything? Does she know the caller? The drowsy woman's initial apathy disengages my reader's investment in the news. Has "he" been sick? Has she been awaiting some news about him? What is her attitude to the caller -- and why is she such a zombie? The exchange oughta be tweaked somehow.

Lovely piece, keep editing, freshly unusual choice for the theme.


Cryptana
Eschatology

There's a real fine ear for sound at work in this poem -- real fine. There's also a very appealing economy of language, it's dense, boiled-down, rich stuff. Effective structurally, each verse is a progressive unit with a final bang at the climactic end. Unexpected take on the theme -- I see how you choose a word for the title with a morphology that suggests a scientific field of study and then pepper the poem with references to scientific phenomena. That, and the actually eschotological allusions: the end, the watch, the books, "looking for signs", the red heavens, the horseman, black hole, Rapture. I love the "loose net of atoms that others see as solid", the whole fourth stanza (except maybe it's final line -- lose those self-indulgent ellipses, for God's sake), "a rectangle of sunshine erupted between us", the horseman's face, and the closing couplet. When I first read "red-shifting into infidelity" I wondered over the reference, but now picturing the image it invokes in my head, I quite enjoy it. Infidelity as invisible, as moving, and somehow sinister infrared.

There's a few places where you privilege the sound of language over its meaning, or perhaps there's a meaning in your head that isn't getting across to me the reader. "the rise of a despot in every clenched fist" -- whose fists are clenching? who's the despot? I don't get it. Is it the speaker's horseman/lover? What's despotic about him? You need to earn a comparison like that, if that's the case, with a fuller picture of the horseman/lover. What does "fresh air, the friend of corruption" mean? Why does he say that to the speaker? I don't get it. What is jealous about that quip?

The main question I want to ask is about the nature of the relationship that is being wiped clean. I think the direct speech weakens the moment of confrontation, and while I love your penultimate stanza with the black hole and the bang, ultimately I don't understand and therefore cannot fully invest myself as reader in the exchange between the speaker and the horseman/lover. Who is he? Why does he come suddenly one day? Ambiguity is not necessarily wrong (in fact it works for you very well generally in this piece), but I do think that the moment of confrontation is where you might direct editing attention.

Dense, deep, well-ordered work.

Verdict: Eschatology (Cryptana)

Dance

truemane
Wake

Aww man, you paint a vivid, living picture. There's a famous guy on CBC who runs a radio program on Sundays, reading short story submissions that are usually non-fiction memory narratives -- forget his name -- I heard this whole piece in his voice. The speaker recalls the cellar with that specificity of detail which is unique, full of energy, and not superfluous. His energetic investment in the memory draws me the reader into the re-membered space. A narrative voice that is also immediate, this does not sound like a planned speech he is proclaiming, it's the short economic sentences and their paratactic textile that give the sense the memory is occurring freshly to him even as he shares it with me the reader. You use the theme with a refreshing unexpected approach. Love that sunlight dancing and the lost magic of perception that changes it from a mere visual phenomenon to a living interaction. Love the speaker's sense of respect for keeping secrets, it increases my reader's investment in his sharing -- the narrative is more precious because he hasn't shared it with anyone else.

I guess all I want to ask is why is this a poem? You have a series of paragraphs that are essentially prosaic in their syntax which you have arbitrarily enjambed. Maybe you have some arcane schema for your enjambment in your own head in each verse (&you have capitalized some words within lines and sentences seemingly at random -- why?) but I don't get it -- it looks like a short story with unusually narrow margins. It's a beautifully crafted story, but there's nothing about it that really makes it a poem. It's poetic without a doubt, but if you're going to write a poem, then you need to write verses, not paragraphs, made of lines, not sentences that are merely enjambed to within a range of length that approximates poetic lines. i.e., use the structure; sing in chains.

Verdict: Wake (truemane) by default, though let that not discredit the fellow's fine work.

Insects

Mewdo
Insects

You know, I resisted your loose metre at first, but there's a kind of overblown silliness in the speaker that gets away with it. I find the opening two lines hilarious. In a poem whose speaker might come off as unresonantly preachy or self-righteous, the ridiculousness of 'these insects, these insects' kind of gives me the reader permission to like the speaker. I also appreciate the tone shift in the third stanza, and the inverted capital syntax of the fourth stanza -- you use the structure well, it progresses, it moves dextrously all the way to the volta in the final two lines.

In spite of the charm of your slightly shabby metre, there's definitely places it needs tightening. As much as I am a fan of flawless structural poetry, you needn't make it perfect -- the charm does lie in its rough shape that again, gives me the reader permission to like the speaker, who in perfect structure would merely seem rigid and unlikeable, inhuman. The final verse is five lines, with that second line sticking out like a sore unrhyming thumb. And then you've got ABCB in the first stanza but ABAB in the second and third. The gross inconsistency of the fourth verse is my main suggestion for metrical attention, but I wonder also if you have intentionally broken the metre elsewhere, or whether you just don't have the ear to write formally to a tea? Did you read it aloud when you were writing?

To walk away from the cute charm of the speaker for a moment, there is a lack of sophistication and depth in your exploration of the concept. It's ultimately a didactic "man is evil swarm of bugs" piece but how? How have the insects taken away the speaker's right to be free? The ultimate realization of sameness between the speaker and his objects is a very nice touch and clincher, but as a reader I am uninvested in his complaints about the insects. - they are superficial and undeveloped.

It's cute, but it falls short of being compelling.

Rankrath
Insects rule the world

You explore an interesting concept, and a neat one for the theme: insects as useful and beautiful as much as annoying or destructive. There's an almost haiku-like minimalist aesthetic at work in your writing. The lines I taste best are "no, man may build and strut upon / this brown ball he calls home." The earth as brown ball appeals to me in image and in sound.

If you kept the first three lines, and scrapped the rest, you'd have a stellar poem. But that's where freshness ends. There's too much of the didactic in your question-answer structure, and I as a reader am way ahead of you: the speaker's answers are predictable, he's lost me after the first stanza. I feel like what I'm reading is discourse, not poetry: the speaker is telling me, the reader, what's what, rather than showing me and convincing me. I want to experience the dual nature of insects, not be told about it. I would strongly suggest losing the discursive question-answer voice and plumbing much more deeply into a voice of sensual experience.

You need to earn the final pronunciation that the wise man is wise -- the speaker has shared with me as a reader nothing I don't already know. And even more so, you need to earn the insect's comparison with man, and the pronunciation that they run the world -- you've scraped the surface of their ubiquity in the natural world in the third stanza, and scraped the surface of their relation to man in the second stanza, but that's not enough poetic evidence to claim that they run the world.

Except for the brown ball, I'm not getting any images, or senses, I'm just getting a pretty simplistic lesson. What about the butterfly is pleasing? What about the bee is useful? What about the fly is annoying? What about the locust is deadly? And in your third stanza, are you trying for irony in positing the spider's web and the cow's tail as respect for a fly? -- but then its composition with flower's pollen and nectar as respect for a bee doesn't suggest irony.

I see a very workable, novel concept here that needs much more personal, sensual investment and much greater depth in its execution.

Verdict: Insects (Mewdo)

Myth

Felixaar
Heroes of the Present

There's a rough songish quality to your loose syncopative metre and slanting rhyme, to me it smacks of folk lyrics, almost political hip-hop. I don't mind the structure of rhetorical questions -- I'm glad you don't answer them, since rather their cumulative sum drives forwards to the final stanza: and it's the hopeful suggestion for future action, rather than the possibility of simply despairing dead-end conclusions you avoided by not answering the questions you pose, that sells the piece for me. Yes, you write with an appealing simplicity, and it's an unexpected take on the theme.

My first and most easily corrected suggestion is the final stanza -- I cited the lyrical quality of your poem, but it is a poem, not a song, and the refrainish repetition of the final line is not effective. Also, you break the rhyme scheme you built in the first three stanzas - AABB becomes ABAC. Would it be so difficult to remain consistent?

Besides that, you could definitely be more economic with your language and earn your rhymes harder. "distaste/pace" in the first stanza is an artificial rhyme, to me -- what I mean is, "and run from their history at most frightening pace" is an awkward turn of phrase that seems engineered to fit the rhyme. "older/beholder," to me, is a natural rhyme. "forks/talks" (aside from its being a slant rhyme) also seems engineered -- "a pretty voice it surely won't be, when our history talks" -- awkward, contrived. I think you might find some value, in searching for phrases that rhyme naturally, in reading your poem aloud as you refine it. Same as "something that any storm, it can weather" -- at best I can call that archaic syntax, man. Your voice needs to be consistent. And just to be clear, I'm not talking about the sonic quality of your rhymes, but the syntactical quality.

"The slums that we hold today" -- you're talking about glory, riches, greatness, shopping malls, but then you suddenly switch to "slums" in this line. Is that the best choice? The poem is decrying the trashy impermanence of our society's disposable opulence, isn't it, so I thought that slums was inconsistent with your speaker's tone to the present. Slums are ****ty without any veneer of grandeur.

I thought your speaker's vision of a permanent legacy of names could use some development. What is his vision? How is a history built of names more lasting and valuable than a history of great buildings? I think you could definitely spend another verse on your conclusion.

Alarra
Tsohanoai (Navajo Sun God)

There's an ear for language at work in this poem: language with poetic economy and some attention to its sonic properties as much as its meaning. Also, an interesting take on the prompt -- and the myth you draw from, as well -- divine duty as burden, the humanization of the unbreakably prescribed labour of a mythical being.

There's only one literary form I've ever read in which a narrator's addressing himself directly to the second person doesn't immediately inspire resistance to me as a reader -- Choose Your Own Adventure novels. That resistance compounds on top of your -- if I may be frank -- one-dimensionally victimized speaker. The whole martyred pathete nature of the dialogue between poor Tsohanoai and "me" is not sympathetic, rather it's just all too guiltily dramatic without any levity.

I understand that the Navajo myth of the sun god involves him dragging the sun across the sky as a burden, but how do you mean to add interpretation to that myth by invoking his name in your title? Is the speaker addressing a specific human being, or a plurality? - and if the latter, do you mean to have him whitewash humanity into a race of belly-aching sunglasses-wearing hubrisites? The final lines leave me with the feeling that the speaker was a human being at one point, and became a god -- and now bitterly regrets that metamorphosis. Could you go further with that idea? Is there anything that makes his divine station worthwhile, or is his existence an endless, unappreciated hell of burning celestial labour?

The concept you work with is interesting, and there is a degree of language-craft in your writing, but your execution is one-dimensional and unsympathetically didactic.



Verdict: Heroes of the Present (Felixaar)

Scents

Elvaris
Untitled

Snickerdoodle. Heh.
I like the light, fresh, sweet flavour of your poem; I like smell-as-memory; I like the levity. There's an emotional vulnerability to the speaker in that levity, that sweetness, that's appealing -- it's hard not to like him. I like the purely sonic value of the word "chais". I like the sensual specificity of this recollection. I like the economy of language -- it's free verse, but you still write in lines, with small echoes of sonic device and rhyme sprinkled like the cinnamon powder on latte foam. The speaker's need to recall is driven by a present moment -- the audience asks him, why are you wearing that goofy grin? - and the reader spies in on this revelation of memory.

There's two places in this piece where the sweet vulnerability gets disrupted by a narrative intrusion. It's the quotations around 'that goofy grin' and the final line. I would suggest changing it to this goofy grin without quotes -- there's just this slightly self-conscious or sarcastic flavour to the quotes that sours the speaker's sweetness. Also, I might not mind the last line elsewhere, but as a closer, it subverts the emotional honesty of the poem which is its greatest strength.

Is it a little too sweet? - too simple? What is the present related to this memory? I almost want to ask, could you salt the sweetness? Not with cynical meta-intrusions, but with evidence of pain or conflict like every relationship has, bearing an equal emotional honesty, to give a little realistic grit? Also, what about a title?

JoseB
Untitled

Ahh, Proust. I'll admit that everything I know about Proust is from a book called "Sex, Drugs, Einstein, & Elves" and the Monty Python "Summarizing Proust" sketch so the finer details of your allusion may be lost on me.

It's a very interesting structure you've woven in this piece -- I like the tension that arises between the short, abrupt three-syllable lines and the long, floating iambpent lines. In spite of that very strictly disciplined form, there's a Romantic-period flavour to the speaker in the archness, the heightened language, the overwhelming experience of emotion and memory and sensation. My absolute favourite lines are "intertwined / with the gold of the past, and with the mud." Love that image.

What I find, though, is that while you've crafted something quite formally lovely, you've done so at the privilege of specificity in your content. The heightened language gets overblown off into space without more concrete detail to anchor it down. The speaker feels his childhood -- he feels the kind torment of remembered emotions in his heart -- a rush of bittersweet memories -- heavenly remembrance -- a kind of rebirth through memory -- and he shares with the reader how awesome it is, but I the reader feel a little cheated. The speaker brags in flowery language about that awesomeness but doesn't give any away.

Your A rhymes in stanzas four and five hit the same syllable, which tastes just slightly tacky.

What about the speaker's present permits such a serious ecstacy in remembering the past? What is it about the past -- specifically -- that rocks him so profoundly? And what, specifically, about madeleines triggers that re-membered ecstacy, that lost joie-de-vivre? And how do you intend this allusion to Proust's novel to work -- does it have to be madeleines, with their semiotic weight, or could it be something else? The story needs a lot of concretion, filling in. Also, what about a title?

Verdict: Untitled (Elvaris)

Weather

thurge namor
The Storm of Ages

You render this storm with a kind of onamotopoetic grandeur. I really like "light flashes, and thunder claps / all while fear ratta-tap-taps" -- it's got a really snappy rhythm and a lovely stacatto attack like rain and lightning. I like this sense of overwhelming, overbearing power that restrains itself before finality and offers mercy. It's a neat image and a neat thematic comparison of weather and wrath.

The exact events of this narrative get a bit jumbled, though. Is there an actual storm happening, or is it the speaker's internal state of being? On the one hand water pours down his face, but next fear is tapping against the windows to his soul (...his eyes?) and emotions are flooding down the street. Is there an actual storm happening that reflects the speaker's inner state of being? Whatever it is needs clarification.

I am also not satisfactorily clear on the speaker's emotional journey through the piece. At first the wrath of God confuses him with guilt for an unknown sin, then terrifies him of mortal punishment, and then in the last stanza the tone totally shifts. Why is the speaker assailed by a storm? And why, when the storm suddenly breaks, does the speaker shift from abject terror and guilt to invitation and invocation? - and the nature of the storm shift from wrath to cleansing? The shift is abrupt and feels unjustified.

I can perceive the idea -- storm as purge, wrath & forgiveness, anger of God as purifying -- but your execution needs to be much more specific to effectively illustrate that idea.

Verdict: The Storm of Ages (thurge namor) by default.

Island

Devigod
Desolation

Ahh, a ballad! In many ways, you weave the form dextrously and, in many ways, your speaker invokes an archaic kind of voice that gives him an otherness and his gloating curse a heightened archness. I love the invocation of this hellish landscape -- the first several couplets are lovely language. I especially like the reversed first foot in "strangles a piece of land" -- initial trochees, when used consciously and sparingly, launch a line forwards with a startling energy, and "strangles" is a great word to launch like that from.

Your work towards the archaic voice, unfortunately, hamstring my the reader's ability to take the speaker seriously. The most obvious reason is your switch to the singular second person pronoun. I've been trying very hard to give you the benefit of the doubt and see a Shakespearian reason for that switch -- perhaps the social identity in "you" has been stripped away on the island hell into a sneeringly disrespectful "thou"; it's especially in the sudden shift back to "you" in the line, "For you are gone, and you are lost" -- the respect, dignity, and distance present in an address of "you" are gone and lost, and all that remains is the close, unadorned informality of "thou". But I'm not sure if I feel comfortable assuming that was your intent. I mean you use the archaic "doth" there, but everywhere else you use the modern third person singular conjugation. Even if you could work with the old inflections seamlessly, I'd still say just to stick with the modern -- otherwise it's almost impossible not to alienate your modern reader.

The second-person address, altogether, didn't bother me in this piece as much as it usually does. Maybe it's because it seemed less of an address to me, the reader, as audience: I felt more like I was watching the speaker address his object from the sidelines, and so it didn't inspire the immediate resistance that the second-person usually does to me in narrative.

There are also several places where you revert to a very archaic syntax in order to fit the rhyme and metre. It mostly sounds contrived. Phrases like "Stuck here are you," "Blue tapestries that thy heart rend," "and here stand I, hold I your fate," which clash with modern-sounding contractions, "You're left to kneel and plea," "and yet I don't." I'd also say that the elision in "gath'ring" is distractingly archaic, and moreover, since you bend the metre elsewhere, unnecessary.

Yes, I think your biggest job in editing this piece is to iron out as many of those anachronisms as possible. It really shows and disengages me the reader if you're twisting phrases apart so that they are distractingly archaic in their syntax in order to fit into your metre and your rhyme scheme. And beileve me, I write formal poetry more than not, so I know that's a difficult trap to avoid, but that's what it takes to earn old-fashioned structure that is no longer ubiquitous or immediately natural to very modern language. You can still keep that heightened, arch tone, but the artifice has to be subverted -- turn your seams under.

Well, that's form; as far as content is concerned, I think, since in formal poetry the content is so intimately tied to form, that once you clean up the distracting anachronisms, some greater clarity in your story will follow. I like the narrative zoom-in from distant hellish island to stranded object.

Who is the speaker, and who is his stranded object of hatred? Is the speaker the island, or an enemy, or some other agent of malice? You've chosen to write a ballad, which is a form built for telling stories: what is the story here more specifically? I'd like to know, in a lot more detail, what kind of enmity is at work here, who is stranded, how, and why. It would earn the speaker's arch tone a lot more to have that kind of fullness of story.

You chose a hard undertaking to tackle, and it shows some very lovely work: but it definitely needs refinement and fleshing-out. A neat elaboration out of the theme: island as tormentor, as incarceration.

wadledo
Tidal Shifts

The loose metre and "at will" rhyme scheme really works -- your verses are beautifully and simply crafted with a real fine ear for the language. It tells a curious little tale: my reader's interest is definitely piqued to know about these little islands and their fabulose histories. There's a mysterious energy to the speaker -- I feel like I've met him on the beach in the evening, an old hermit with a story to tell. The second-person address works for me fine in this piece, because the speaker is asking me the reader/audience questions, rather than presuming me and forcing me into a role: guiding me rather than yanking me along. I love the opening lines: "as one walks along the beach, / pondering treasure, and the deeps" ... and the first lines of the last stanza, "if I told you these things / and of men who were kings / and lost, precious rings" -- pure music.

Why that shift in audience from "one" to "you"? It's just a slight inconsistency in the voice of the speaker, I think it might be effective to make the first stanza a second-person address too.

The only place I wonder about, formally, is the AxxxxA rhyme in the second stanza. None of your other rhymes are that far apart, and it sticks out: the rhyme does not resonate with that much distance, but it rings a bit artificially. That stanza is the one where your home-spun structure shows its slivers. Also, please commit a brutal comma genocide. My friend, you do not need to hang a comma on the end of every line -- the enjambment, in almost every case, will accomplish poetically what you need, and in many cases you wouldn't even need the comma without enjambment. As a piece of punctuation, it minces up the progression of the speaker's thought and disrupts its momentum.

What is the speaker's motive in telling this little narrative, and what is the reason for his conclusion? Does he often feel misunderstood, having told this story to others before? It's a very significant note to end a poem on, but can you work to earn that ambiguity a little harder? I would like most to know why the speaker wants to tell this story -- and what he wants from his audience and me, the reader. There's a lot of directions you could go with that in mind, and making a choice would soften the ending's current abruptness.

Very effective wordcraft; my suggestion is to put your editing attention towards clarifying the very finest points of the story to make this a real pearl.

Verdict: Tidal Shifts (Wadledo)

[The Extinguisher]

Not to be all bothering about judgment and all, but I think you're missing a category there.

[Devigod]

I'm pretty sure he's been updating them as he's been finishing them, as the judgments from my round hadn't been half-finished when I checked earlier today.

So he's getting to them I should imagine.

Have we heard anything from our other judges?

Edit 2: And now is completely finished.

[Kneenibble]

Yeah, Devigod's got the straight of it, I started last night and I've been adding them in one by one as I finish them off. I didn't forget about you, guy!

And I'm terribly sorry to leave you and Rustkilly hanging like this, but I've been at this for a long time and I really need to move to some other work... you'll have to wait a little while longer for my "Jealousy" judgements. I'll edit them in later today or tomorrow.

I hope the other judges didn't forget they signed up, maybe if they don't squeak in a few days somebody oughta give them a PM poke.

[The Extinguisher]

My apologies. That makes sense. :smallredface:
I woke around two o'clock today, so I hadn't noticed.

Carry on then.

[Felixaar]

Thanks for the comments, Kneen :smallbiggrin: though I have to admit alot of the big words just fly right over my head. Zooooooooooooom.

[AJWB]

Sorry for the lateness of my judgments, I'm graduating college in a few days and recently found out my professor thinks my final thesis sucks, so I've had a rough couple of days dealing with that.
</life>

ANYWAY

I should start by saying that I'm moderately new to the world of poetry, so if my critiques do not seem in depth enough for you, please PM me and I'll try to elaborate. After all, the goal of these competitions is to become better writers, and we can't do that if we don't know what we're doing wrong, right?

Also, a hearty handshake and a pat on the back for Alarra, Iron Author VIII champion. At least I lost the last round to a very gifted writer :) And thank you to the people from this thread who dropped in to judge. We really appreciate it.

Onto the judgments!

Phoekun vs. Cryptana: Apocalypse

Phoekun, The Way the World Ends

Definitely an interesting way to go about the prompt. Certainly not what I had in mind when I saw it, so well done for creativity. However, it feels a little cluttered because of how much you try to fit into each line. The way you went about the prompt seems to require a certain bit of finesse that was lost in the verbosity of some of the lines.


Cryptana, Eschatology

Put simply, I love this. The short lines give an almost simplistic feel to the prompt, which in turn leaves this foreboding feeling that something so much deeper than the words is occuring.


Verdict

Cryptana, Eschatology



Helgraf vs. Truemane: Dance

Helgraf

No entry :(


Truemane, Wake

I've always had a fondness for poems that are about reflections to younger, "better" times, so this of course struck a chord with me. I think this poem speaks to a certain aspect in all of us, the child who was once so fascinated with everything the world had to offer. Nice work.


Verdict

Truemane, Wake



Mewdo vs. Rankrath: Insects

Mewdo, Insects

I won't lie, something about this poem just rubs me the wrong way. It just makes my skin crawl in an odd sort of way, but at the same time I see the harsh truth that you're trying to portray.


Rankrath, Insects rule the world

I like the poem and what you're trying to say with it, but something about the structure and overall feel of the poem seems to take something away from this cool message you've got going.


Verdict

Mewdo, Insects



Felixaar vs. Alarra: Myth

Felixaar, Heroes of the Present

I like it. I like it a lot. For saying you know nothing about poetry, this is stellar work. Good message, good flow, a nice little hippie vibe to it. I'm totally digging this work.


Alarra, Tsohanoai

This is just awesome. It's simplistic, yet beautiful, and it has this totally powerful message to boot. Great stuff. I honestly don't know what to say. It's just good.


Verdict

Alarra, Tsohanoai



Elvaris vs. JoseB: Scent

Elvaris

This poem is amazing because it's so simple, yet it touches on something that is so profound in all of our lives: those little moments that seem so insignificant, but evoke wonderful feelings because of what we tie to them. I hope that everyone has a chance to experience a moment like the young couple in this poem did.


JoseB

So, I really, really like this poem. The feel and flow of it work together just wonderfully. Regrettably, it fails to evoke any strong emotions. It's a fantastic piece, but just doesn't reach down to me.


Verdict

Elvaris



Devon68G vs. Thurge Namor: Weather

Devon68g

No entry :(


Thurge Namor, The Storm of Ages

It's...interesting. I get what you're trying to do with it, but it doesn't seem to work for me. The flow just doesn't seem to match what you're trying to portray; the lines just don't synch up well together and leave it feeling disjointed.


Verdict

Thurge Namor, The Storm of Ages




Devigod vs. Wadledo: Island

Devigod, Desolation

Not gonna lie, this poem just makes me feel depressed. It has a very sad message, and the way it seems segmented adds to that feeling of disjointedness and...desolation :P So, in that regard, it's a very good poem, just not quite up my alley.


wadledo, Tidal Shifts

Loving the whole "hidden histories" thing you've got going on in this poem. The fact that places we find so mundane and ordinary have deep, rich histories that we don't even know about is a profoundly awesome thing, and I think you captured it perfectly.


Verdict

wadledo, Tidal Shifts




Rutskarn vs. Flame Master Axel: Jealousy

Rutskarn, Dreams of a Shattered Dream

Wow. Talk about taking the prompt and running with it. I feel like I need to break out my old Linkin Park CDs. Dark, gritty, but just too much. In working the prompt in this way, subtlety is utterly destroyed. It's a good poem, but it just bashes you over the head with angst. I'd personally reel it in a bit.


Flame Master Axel, Your only love

Like Rutskarn, props for freaking nailing the prompt. It's got this creepy, stalker vibe to it, but the way you wrote it seems to work somehow. It's heavy handed, but at the same time restrained.


Verdict

Flame Master Axel, Your only love



This was fun! Looking forward to next round. These are way better than those crappy poems they have you read in high school English. Except Shakespeare. What a BAMF.

[Rutskarn]

AJWB: That's a fair point. I wasn't putting a lot of thought into subtlety with this poem--actually, most of my poetry is about as visceral as I can manage, which is occasionally a liability. I guess it's just how I like writing it.

Grats on the first vote, Flaxel. Let's see how this turns out.

[Devigod]

Hmm... should somebody PM Crimson Angel?

I'd like to see the rest of the judgment even though I've essentially lost.

It was fun. Best of luck, Wadledo, and the rest of you.

I'll see you all next competition.

[PhoeKun]

I've been debating whether or not to admit this... I think in the end I'll feel better if I do.

Pretty much the instant I saw the prompt, I had a bunch of swirling images in my head that shaped the way I wanted to write the poem.

I don't think even two hours later, I got a call telling me my uncle had died, and that I needed to get ready to fly out for his funeral. I'd rather not go into the details, but suffice it to say I spent the entire week I had to write the poem freaking out about various things, instead. I flew back the day before the poem was due, collapsed into bed, and woke up the next morning in a panic before scrambling to get my ideas down on paper into some semblance of what I had thought of before.

I didn't really succeed. Looking at Cryptana's entry, I don't think whatever I was going to produce with a week's worth of poeming instead of stress and misery would have won, so I'm not saying this out of any sense of "rawr this isn't fair and I should be the one moving on yadda yadda yadda"... but I'm really disappointed with the way this turned out. It's the basic framework of what I wanted, but as the judges have so very correctly noticed, the words are cluttered, conflicting, and often poorly chosen to boot. I would very much have liked to put forth a poem that I felt was the best it could be, and to offer worthy competition to a very excellent entry from Cryptana...

Apart from all that, I'm not really sure what else to say.

[Rutskarn]

I've been debating whether or not to admit this... I think in the end I'll feel better if I do.

Pretty much the instant I saw the prompt, I had a bunch of swirling images in my head that shaped the way I wanted to write the poem.

I don't think even two hours later, I got a call telling me my uncle had died, and that I needed to get ready to fly out for his funeral. I'd rather not go into the details, but suffice it to say I spent the entire week I had to write the poem freaking out about various things, instead. I flew back the day before the poem was due, collapsed into bed, and woke up the next morning in a panic before scrambling to get my ideas down on paper into some semblance of what I had thought of before.

I didn't really succeed. Looking at Cryptana's entry, I don't think whatever I was going to produce with a week's worth of poeming instead of stress and misery would have won, so I'm not saying this out of any sense of "rawr this isn't fair and I should be the one moving on yadda yadda yadda"... but I'm really disappointed with the way this turned out. It's the basic framework of what I wanted, but as the judges have so very correctly noticed, the words are cluttered, conflicting, and often poorly chosen to boot. I would very much have liked to put forth a poem that I felt was the best it could be, and to offer worthy competition to a very excellent entry from Cryptana...


Apart from all that, I'm not really sure what else to say.

My condolences, PhoeKun.

I did like your poem, and I think I can see what you wanted to eke out there. If you want to perfect the poem, even outside the competition, give me a heads-up--I'll read it.

[Zeb The Troll]

Phoe, the fact of the matter is that not everyone can write the best thing they've ever done every time they write. There are some important things to note that apply to this instance in particular.

First, this is a seat of the pants friendly competition that promises no prize other than the warm glow of gooey praise (mixed imagery, yay!), which is not given as much as is probably expected. I think most of the authors are often caught off guard by at least a couple of the critiques that are posted, even if they win the bracket. That means that its okay if its not the first priority sometimes.

Second, and I think I'm not alone in this, I'll happily read stuff you've thrown together and haven't given as much attention as you'd have liked. You've got a talent. I'm not a particularly "poetry" kind of guy, but the contributions from you and the other competitors compels me to come here and read them.

And last but not least, I don't know how you do it but you've got an uncanny knack for drawing tough competition in Round 1. I know that a lot of us look at the contestants list and have some expectations about who will likely advance to the second round and you, you often have the great misfortune of being paired with the top of the list. :smalltongue:

EDIT: That last bit sounded weird on rereading. Of course, you're on that list that we expect to move on also. :smallcool:

[JoseB]

Well, it was fun to take part in the contest! Although I lost, it was a valuable experience.

Waiting for the next one! Let's see if I can get it going. I guess that I am not the one to inspire rousing emotions, but oh well...! Next time, Inspector Gadget... Next time...!

[Vaynor]

Hmm... should somebody PM Crimson Angel?

I'd like to see the rest of the judgment even though I've essentially lost.

It was fun. Best of luck, Wadledo, and the rest of you.

I'll see you all next competition.

I already PMed him, hopefully he'll judge soon.

[Cryptana]

I've been debating whether or not to admit this... I think in the end I'll feel better if I do.

PhoeKun, I just want to say I really appreciate the competition and am honored you liked my poem. I thought your imagery was gorgeous, especially in the first stanza. I wouldn't lay that one aside at all because you have some honest-to-goodness great stuff in there.

~Cryp

[Felixaar]

Thanks for the comments, AJWB!

Man, this is a cliffhanger? Will I defeat the lustrous 'larra, or will she thoroughly kick my can? Find out next time on.... IRON POET!! :smallbiggrin:

[The Extinguisher]

Is it next time yet?

[Rutskarn]

Naw, still got to hear from the other judge and Neeby.

[Felixaar]

*sigh* never quite get all the judges, do we? On that note, I haven't seen Crim around at all lately. I'd say that as per the usual we should open the floor to any non-competitor who can get some judgings done, or alternatively Vaynor could do it.

[Vaynor]

If anyone wants to judge, please do. I will judge tomorrow if no one else does.

Been busy, judgments later today.

[Elvaris]

Since I'm so terrible at waiting (and not in a position to judge), you get...

The Alternate Poem:

There once was a man from Racine,
Whose odor was truly obscene.
A whiff of his scent
Generally meant
The smeller would turn olive green.

Yeah... there's a reason I went with the other one...

[thurge namor]

since we are showing alternative poems... here was mine but i didnt think it was weathery enough seeing that it only refers to raining fire, which really isnt weather... so... yah

Fires of Judgment
I stand above the end of the world
Watching the white fires descent upon
An unaware sleeping earth,
Flames as hot as a blacksmith's hearth.
I look to the burning horizon
Watching the stars burn with blinding light
No person left to put up a fight
As some being destroys life out of greed and spite.
Conflagration erupts as this planet is purified
Of the only creature that has ever lied
Through white stained teeth
With shifty calculating eyes
And all hope of redemption is lost.

Around me Fires of Judgment swirled
And I watched as tortured shoul tried and sever
Their corporeal ties to a fragile host, lest they are never
To rise again in this finally cleansed, broken world.

As the destruction of sin is reflected in my eyes
The only thought that comes to mind
Is of you.

Memories of a time already past
One that we used to look back on and laugh
About the innocence of our love.

A drop of water saturates the ground
With a tiny orb, so perfect and round,
Of my conflicting emotions.

I turn my head and hope for rain
As i attempt to hide my face in vain
From your beautiful searching eyes
That are trying so very hard to pry
The thoughts I think about you and I.

Life as we know it burns below
And all we can do is turn and go
Wandering away from this life that we had
Praying to God for a peaceful tomorrow.

Lay your head against my chest
And let the deep bass of my heart
Lull you to sleep, I promise we'll never part,
And here we will stay so you can rest
Without the influence of anger or stress or fear
You can finally be at peace, just knowing I'm near
And that i love you.

Sleeping so sweetly,
Your body pressed against mine
I know that one thing is definitely true:
We'll live this life together
Just you and I
Hand in hand, and arms intertwined
We'll let this pain disappear into the past
As we move on together
Ceaselessly into the sunset.



tell me what you think

[Vaynor]

Due to time constraints, I am only going to judge those who require it (aka tie breaker), I am not able to give you much commentary at the moment, but I assure you I am reading your poems with the utmost care. I'll eventually edit in the rest of the commentary (at the moment it will just be a quick bit about why I chose it, I will PM you when I finish). I have finals, AP tests, and SATs all within the next week or two and I can't spare the time, again, sorry.

Felixaar vs. Alarra
Felixaar
I like the concept of this poem a lot, but the rhyme/rhythm seem rather forced and awkward. I guess I've never really been one for a rhyme scheme, you did very well.

Alarra
I love your final line immensely, it sums up the poem very well. It flowed very well, and I liked how you incorporated an actual myth in the poem.

Verdict
Alarra

Rutskarn vs. Flame Master Axel
Rutskarn
I like this poem a lot, very moody, very dark. It exemplifies the prompt well.

Flame Master Axel
I like the way it was formatted, makes the poem very personal. However, I'm not sure why although throughout the entire poem, the left side starts with "I" (very pointedly so) but then you use one "you" partway through. Moving on, you bring jealousy to a more personal level and the poem flowed nicely. Thoroughly enjoyed it.

Verdict
Flame Master Axel

Final Winners:
Cryptana
Trumane
Mewdo
Alarra
Elvaris
Thurge Namor
Wadledo
Flame Master Axel

Congratulations!

[Felixaar]

Ah well, looks like thats game for me. If you want a judge to replace Crim, I'm in.

[Vaynor]

Ah well, looks like thats game for me. If you want a judge to replace Crim, I'm in.

That would be awesome, thank you.

[Rutskarn]

Wellp, that was brief.

Any case, good game, Flaxel--better poem won, and all that.

[truemane]

Ummm...

Please, sir? Could we have some more?

[Felixaar]

More?! :smallconfused:

[Rutskarn]

Oar?! Hold them places.

[The Extinguisher]

Yar?!

texttexttexttext

[Vaynor]

Iron Poet VII: Round Two

Trumane vs. Elvaris: Interest (any kind)
Mewdo vs. Wadledo: Humor
Thurge Namor vs. Alarra: Dedication
Flame Master Axel vs. Cryptana: Honesty

Deadline: The midnight between Friday, May 15, 2009 11:59 pm (EST) and Saturday, May 16, 2009 12:01 am (EST).

[AJWB]

Looking forward to this round. Good luck, poets.

[Zeb The Troll]

Deadline: The midnight between Friday, May 15, 2009 11:59 pm (EST) and Saturday, May 16, 2009 12:01 am (EST).Since we don't commonly use the 24 hour clock here, I find it easier to just make deadlines intended to midnight as 11:59pm. One minute one way or the other won't make a difference, usually. I mean, our clocks are off by more than that from each other and the forum clock can be really weird at times anyway. :smallcool:

[Vaynor]

Since we don't commonly use the 24 hour clock here, I find it easier to just make deadlines intended to midnight as 11:59pm. One minute one way or the other won't make a difference, usually. I mean, our clocks are off by more than that from each other and the forum clock can be really weird at times anyway. :smallcool:

I'm not sure what you mean, they're due by that midnight. I'm trying to make it exceptionally clear as we've had trouble with deadline comprehension in the past. Since I started doing it this way, I've never had a problem (as opposed to 4-5 per contest), so I see no reason to change it.

[Vaynor]

Bump! Get those submissions in, guys. Contest is almost over.

[The Extinguisher]

I don't think all the down time helped it any.

In any case, my poem.

Prompt: Honesty

"A true word is worth a thousand pictures"

Formulate thoughts into words
Speak your mind
Don't hide
Show your voice
Don't disappear
Behind a facade

Criticize!
Feel Alive!
Free your mind!

Don't be allowed to
pepper your feelings
with bittersweet compliments

Live vicariously through the moment
And treat yourself to freedom
Give no thoughts to shadows
and lies

Because only in truth
can we truly
be free.

[Vaynor]

I don't think all the down time helped it any.

If it's a problem I'll add an extension.

[The Extinguisher]

That might help. And PM everybody in the contest.

[Zeb The Troll]

I'm not sure what you mean, they're due by that midnight. I'm trying to make it exceptionally clear as we've had trouble with deadline comprehension in the past. Since I started doing it this way, I've never had a problem (as opposed to 4-5 per contest), so I see no reason to change it.I'm just saying that by stating that the deadline is 11:59pm, you're not significantly altering the time frame and you don't need all that other crap "to make it exceptionally clear". For all intents and purposes this


Due by 11:59pm EDT* on <date>

is identical to this


Due by the midnight between <date> 11:59 pm (EST) and <date +1> 12:01 am (EST)
and is equally clear and far less tedious for both you and the reader. You're not likely to hold 1 minute against a contestant anyway, right?

But it's not my contest. I was just making a comment and it wasn't intended to be any sort of criticism.

*We're on Daylight Saving Time. EST is only good from mid-November to mid-March.

[Alarra]

If it's a problem I'll add an extension.

An extension of a day or so due to forum outage would be great....not that the forums being down remotely affected my ability to turn in a poem, :smallredface: but I don't know if I'll be done because tomorrow is the craziest busiest day ever and though it's mostly written, it's in the 'crap' stage, and hey...since only one entry is in, clearly others are running into a time crunch too, right? :smallcool:

[Vaynor]

One day extension effective immediately, may add more if needed.

[truemane]

Excellent. I also, must be honest and admit that the forum being down hasn't seriously impacted on my writing ability, but this being my busiest week of the year, work-wise, has.

So an extra day would suit me all the way down to the ground. Even though I'm afraid of Elvaris getting extra time too.

Can I get an extra day but HE be forced to submit at the original deadline?
:smallcool:

[Cryptana]

One day isn't going to help this poem any. Hehe... And I'm glad to see my muse can still show up for a deadline. Game on!

Prompt stumped me for a while, and the poem turned out to be a rather strange one. The scene kinda takes me back to college. :smallbiggrin:

The prompt was....HONESTY


Bitter

The coffee was bitter. A tongue-twister,
a scalding sip that squeezed tears
from my eyeballs, causing her face to shimmer.

“So hungry,” she gasps as if truly famished
and not just crashing from the grande latte
she had for breakfast. I nod, and her mouth stretches,

lips bending around the burger,
blissfully feeding her bender.
Grease ran down her finger.

“100% Natural Grade A Beef,” said the menu.
An honest cow then, if by honest you mean
incapable of falsifying a simple moo.

I won’t crash. I will take the bitter coffee
if only I could swallow the gelled dregs
of what seems to be yesterday’s percolations.

Her cheeks worked the food,
the cud will be chewed,
and the only afterthought will be cow pies,

steaming patties in the field.
The waitress passes with a balance
of plates full of the honest beef.

The neon coffee mug on the wall
buzzed red-yellow, red-yellow
Best Joe, Best Joe, Best Joe…

My stomach roiled from the stench
of cow patties, the clatter of plates,
the bitter coffee surfing down the esophagus.

“How is everything?” the waitress says,
passing by. My fingers hug my mug,
protectively. “It’s good.”

[thurge namor]

oh, good... i thought i was gonna be late... i wrote this the day of the prompt assignment but then had AP testing to study for so i couldnt get back on...

Prompt: dedication


Elegy:

Grave side chats of the nature of life
and hopeful serenity in death
as flesh becomes earth below.

Breathe in
Breathe out
and let my life dissipate
then I'm on top of the world
watching the vicious betrayal
of my body turned to dust.

Tiny tears of pain drip from my lover's eyes;
a testament to the void of loss created at my passing.
Softly i whisper in her ear words of contentment
and she looks to the heavens
as my dedication of love passes into her soul.

Graveside chats of remembrances of life
and patient thoughts after death
as flesh becomes earth below.
I slowly wander away
with a smile on my face
at the golden flowers resting by my grave,
her dedication of love to my eternal soul.



Comments:
Since most judges dont read this i'll keep it short (not that i could really talk bout my poem much anyways) i started out with the picture of a man talking at his own funeral and it was to be his dedication to his own life but i could not make it work so instead it became this

[Mewdo]

This extra day really helped the poem. Thank you. And thank you, AJWB and Kneenibble, for your comments on my previous entry. Also, thank you, judges, in advance for looking at this entry. Actually, thank you to anyone who takes a critical look at what I write. Really. I'm very bad at doing it myself and this contest is most definitely helping me. That's more important than winning, in my opinion. But you didn't ask for my life story. You asked for a poem. So here is my entry for Round 2 of Iron Poet VII, with the topic of "Humor."



A Somewhat Funny Story

It’s sort of funny, though.
That all you think and all you know
And all the evidence you showed
Had no effect when it came.
Now you’ve gone mad
While I stay sane.

Of course I’m very sad.
We were always best friends as lads.
But I guess I just was never bad
At laughing all misfortune off.
You would obsess
While I’d just scoff.

And still now I must confess
I see the humor in this mess.
You rambled on about “these insects,”
As if you thought them less than men.
Now you’re the one below
While I am one of them.

-Mew(µ)

[wadledo]

Humor

A Homage to Dr. Seus
There is often the question of what seems funny,
Or if all I say is just too punny,
And weither or not life is too runny
When things are never that sunny.

But when I think this
(From this little spiel, you must think I'm amiss)
I often must regrettably admit,
I never know quite when to quit.

This whole poem is getting out of hand,
And honestly, is rather quite bland.
With this in mind, and nothing to list,
I say to thee, I'm in a bit of a twist.

Please, stop reading right now!
Or I shall have to give in my cow,
For the words keep on rhyming
And I'm out of timing
And this last one is nothing but wrong!

[Elvaris]

There's plenty I could say about this, but I really shouldn't. So I won't.

Prompt: Interest (any kind)


Well you signed us up for a yoga class
Even though you knew I'd fall on my ass.
And I couldn't hold a single pose
While my falling led to a broken nose.

Now we may not be invited back,
But I know this much is true:
I may not share your interests,
But I'm interested in you.

Next you dragged me down to your reading group
Even though the book threw me for a loop.
Well, I'm sure I left your friends enraged
When I hadn't read a single page.

So I may not fathom Shakespeare,
And for Joyce I have no clue.
While I may not share your interests,
I'm still interested in you.

You threw your arms up into the night,
And asked for anything I could do right.
So I pulled you close and I held you tight.

I may not be well-rounded,
But I'm loyal through and through.
And I may not share your interests,
But I'm interested in you.

[truemane]

I warned Vaynor that I might be late, as I was at work with little Net access and no poem. If he approves my tardiness, then all will be well. If not then I'll assume myself to have burned my one 12 Hour Extension.

Also, full round! Sweetness!

Prompt: Interest (any kind)

Caveat


*YOINK*

[The Extinguisher]

Hey, we have everyone here this round. Cool.

[Kneenibble]

Judgements pending, poets.

[truemane]

Okay, it's been a week and, aside from a single peep from Kneenibble 5 days ago, not a word from judges. That makes me nervous.

Judges?

Allo?

[AJWB]

I have decided to withhold my judgments until the final slots in the new Iron Author are filled up.

:smallbiggrin:

Kidding! Here they are. Seriously though, consider signing up for Iron Author if you joined this. I'm sure it will help you expand your writing repertoire.

Poets, I apologize again for not being able to put my judgments into words as well as you deserve. If you have any questions about my critiques, please feel free to PM me.

Truemane vs. Elvaris: Interest
Truemane, Caveat
...Cheeky. Not quite what I was expecting with the prompt, but I like what you did with it. I don't have a better word for it, but the "stiltiness" of the lines is usually a turn-off for me, but it works really well for the theme and feel of the poem.
Elvaris
This is really cute. I like it a lot, but it doesn't really evoke any strong feelings and seems a bit...empty.
Verdict
Truemane


Mewdo vs. Wadledo: Humor
Mewdo, A Somewhat Funny Story
Ha, I like it. Definitely a different take on the prompt, but the flow of the stanzas takes something away from this. The last two lines in each verse are too sharp a contrast from the other lines.

Wadledo, A Homage to Dr. Seuss
Ah, the metahumor route. This is certainly an odd little poem with the differing rhyme schemes between the first verse and the next two and the limerick at the end, but for what you were trying to do with it, I think it worked.

Verdict
Wadledo


Thurge Namor vs. Alarra: Dedication
Thurge Namor, Elegy
Another poem where I'm not sure what to say because I just like it, plain and simple.

Alarra
The opening three verses don't seem to fit in with the rest of the poem. I understand what you were going for, but it seems a little too "artsy" in comparison to the rest of the poem.

Verdict
Thurge Namor, Elegy


Flame Master Axel vs. Cryptana: Honesty

Flame Master Axel, "A true word is worth a thousand pictures"
I feel like I should be in a dark coffee house listening to a guy with a bongo talk to me about the man. I like what you did with this. The style works perfectly with the theme of the poem.

Cryptana
Getting the coffee house feel again, but it goes a touch too over the top for me. I get what you're doing with it, but it's a little heavy-handed.

Verdict
Flame Master Axel, "A true word is worth a thousand pictures"

[Vaynor]

Where are my judges!

[AJWB]

Right here, milord! :smalltongue:

[Vaynor]

Pfft, not you. You're the good one.

[truemane]

Didn't Felixaar say he was going to judge this round? And Kneeb hasn't logged on to the boards since the 24th of May. Which makes me scared.

[PhoeKun]

Didn't Felixaar say he was going to judge this round? And Kneeb hasn't logged on to the boards since the 24th of May. Which makes me scared.

It's the end of the world as we know it.

Do you feel fine?

[Felixaar]

Sorry boys and girls, I completely forgot.

It's an annoying, but loveable, character trait of mine.

I'll shut up now and judge.

JUDGEMENT TIEM!!!

Truemane V. Elvaris
Honestly a very close one. Truemanes poem is filled with interesting outlook on society and vivid imagery that we can all assosciate with and relate to, while Elvaris poem is also relatable, as well as being a bit more fun and something I will probably quote him on later - I also appreciate the rhyme scheme. On the other hands, the "butchered sentences" school of poetry shines through in Truemane's work, which I detest, and though it is all well written, it lasts far too long - I would recommend cutting it down to two thirds atleast. Elvaris poem lacks the depth that Truemane's does, and skipping out a line in the fifth stanza also bugs me. I think that, ultimately, I will have to pick Elvaris, since his rings a bit close to the prompt for me (which is the majority of what I judge upon), but I want to impress on both of you the excellent quality of your work.

Mewdo V. Wadledo
I have to admit I'm not particularly fond of either poem - Mewdo's, while well written, has an annoyingly inconsisten rhyme scheme and does not connect very well with the reader. Wadledo's, while formed on the good idea of a homage to Dr. Seuss (it's a double s, by the way) is not particularly well done and nowhere near the good doctor's style - if you take away the title, it doesn't make any sense whatsoever. Sorry to be so harsh, but I'm sure you'd preffer the truth than incessant molly-coddling. I can go get some of that out of the back room if you'd preferr, though. Prompt following was relatively well done on both, but I think I'll pick Mewdo, since I like the way the prompt is used in his.

Alarra V. thurge namor
Interesting how both poems were set in graveyards, hmm? Well, either way they were both good works. I liked the Romantic way thurge's is written, but I have to hand this one to Alarra for better use of the prompt and a clearer tale. One thing though, did you mean to have the last half of the poem in italics

FMA V. Cryptana
Hmm. FMA's poem is good, it has a nice provocative feel towards the start, but unfortunately that shambles and falls apart at the end - that, and there is little to rythm, and that whole "broken sentences" feel. Cryptana's poem, on the other hand, is whimsical and entertaining, able to convey complex feelings with few words, and easy to relate to. Still, the broken sentences feel annoys me. I'll hand this one to Cryptana, better use of the prompt and better rythm as well as masterful imagery.

Good luck and thanks to all - and very well done on a full round. See you all next time!

edit: sweet stevens! I've actually gone against AJWB at every turn! Cliff hangers aren't just for DnD Fantasy Webcomics no more!

[truemane]

It's the end of the world as we know it.

Do you feel fine?

It's time I had some time alone...

[PhoeKun]

It's time I had some time alone...

...I have been one up'd. <.<

*slinks back into the shadows*

[Zeb The Troll]

Alarra V. thurge namor
Interesting how both poems were set in graveyards, hmm? Well, either way they were both good works. I liked the Romantic way thurge's is written, but I have to hand this one to Alarra for better use of the prompt and a clearer tale. One thing though, did you mean to have the last half of the poem in italics?Since she's asleep right now, I'll answer that (in spoiler so that those who don't want the exposé* can avoid it)...
Yes, it is supposed to be in italics. You know when you open a book and you see that little snippet that says "Dedicated to my loving wife ..."? The italics is that part. It is his Dedication (prefix to a work of art as a token of respect, esteem, or affection) to her dedication (selfless devotion) which enabled him to complete the book he now opens, for the first time, over her grave, so that he may read the Dedication to her posthumously.

*how do you get that accented "e" thing to work, anyway?
EDIT: Hey, lookit that!

[Alarra]

Felixaar:
Yes, having the last half of the poem in italics is intentional. The idea here is that he's at her gravesite reading her the dedication that he wrote to her in the front of the book, so the italicized part is the book dedication. :smallsmile:

edit: hehe...and I so didn't notice that Zeb had already answered you....

[Mewdo]

*how do you get that accented "e" thing to work, anyway?

Hold Alt and press 130 on the numpad. Alternatively, you could just type the whole post in Word using Insert-Symbol for all the fancy letters you want without memorizing the code for them. I just memorized the "é" because I like to spell Pokémon correctly.

[truemane]

...I have been one up'd. <.<

*slinks back into the shadows*

Awwwww... darn it.

Standing on the shoulders of giants leaved me cold.

[Felixaar]

Ah, thanks all. That make more sense now.

[The Extinguisher]

Judges? Judges?

Bueller?

[Vaynor]

Judges? Judges?

Bueller?

Tell me about it. Who are we missing?

Honestly, if it's one thing we need, it's reliable judges.

[wadledo]

Half-decent poets would be nice too.:smalltongue:

[Zeb The Troll]

Tell me about it. Who are we missing?

Honestly, if it's one thing we need, it's reliable judges.It's always been bad, but this is getting ridiculous. I'd help if it weren't for the fact that Alarra is competing and Cryptana is a RL friend of ours.

[Coidzor]

How many more judges are needed?

[Zeb The Troll]

As of right now, from one to three.

[truemane]

What surprises me on a contest to contest, round to round basis, is that no former contestants volunteer to judge. As of this particular contest, there are seven contestants who are no long playing. And only one of them has stepped forward to offer to judge.

[Felixaar]

Perhaps Vay could fill in with judgements again?

Just an idea.

[AJWB]

Or you could have just agreed with me in the first place, Felix :smalltongue:

[dish]

What are the criteria for being a judge? (Does one have to write oneself, cos I don't...) Zeb put out a request on the Random Banter thread, and judging a poetry competition seemed much more interesting than grading my students' final exams. (Procrastination: everyone can do it!)

So, with the caveats that my own poetry-writing skills are abominable, and that I respect all the contestants for being brave enough to enter:

Truemane vs Elavris
Truemane: I really enjoyed your vocabulary. Some of your word-choices were spot-on and completely appropriate for the imagery. I found your main idea intriguing, and also enjoyed the end. Overall a very good entry, but I feel it could have been edited down to make more of an impact. (I got a bit bored in the middle.)

Elavris: You expressed a lovely, sweet sentiment in a non-sentimental and quite humourous way - kudos for that. The rhyming scheme was a bit hit-and-miss, but when it worked well it was great. I enjoyed the repetition of the refrain and the clear, simple language. However, I would ask for an edit to avoid starting too many lines with the same word and to clarify the metre.

This one is a really difficult choice, but I'm going to go with Truemane for a more precise control of language.

Mewdo vs Wadledo
Mewdo: A rather ironic take on the topic given, and I wonder about the sentiment expressed in the final stanza - who can tell whether the mad or more or less important than the sane? However, I admire the mechanics. Both the metre and rhyming scheme are quite well-controlled and the language manages to be clear and simple while remaining precise.

Wadledo: Sorry, but if doggerel is going to be funny it has to have more of a point than, "This poem isn't very good."

So, I'm choosing Mewdo.

Thurge Namor vs Alarra
Thurge Namor: I can see all the words, but I'm not getting the emotions coming through. Maybe it's the juxtaposition of words like 'vicious betrayal' and 'contentment', but I just end up confused about which feelings are being portrayed. Maybe the progression would be clearer if it wasn't written all in the present simple tense?

Alarra: Nice. I get a strong image of this couple as they were when the narrator was writing his (?) book. I prefer the simplicity and directness of the language in the second half, but overall, very well-controlled and precise.

My vote goes for Alarra.

Flame Master Axel vs Cryptana
Flame Master Axel: A very strong sentiment is expressed here. It certainly seems like a spoken-word poem made for a poetry-slam or dark, smoky, beat-basement. However, some abrupt shifts in metre do make it a bit difficult to recite. For example, there's a strong trochaic rhythm going in lines 1-4, and then a sudden move to iambic / anapestic rhythms in lines 5 & 6.

Cryptana: I like the way you've worked in several references to different forms of honesty. I also enjoy your imaginative and playful use of words. However, the imagery sometimes gets a bit confusing - especially with all the bovine metaphors going on.

This is another difficult choice. Really difficult. They were both good in different ways, but I'm going to go for Cryptana, because some of that vocabulary is just back-tinglingly right.

I hope this is helpful.

[The Extinguisher]

Yay! All the judging is done.

As well, if you need me, I'll do some judgery on future rounds.

[thurge namor]

ill see you all next time... this actually solved my dilema cause i leave tomorrow for a two week backpacking trip in New Mexico so i couldn't continue anyways

[dish]

If you were satisfied with my judging, I'll happily help out again. Just let me know when the next round happens.

[truemane]

Personally, I think your judgings were excellent. Precise, insightful, succinct. Much better than that what's-his-name Vay-something guy that runs the joint, anyway...

:smallbiggrin:

I think you should come back again and again and again...

[Vaynor]

Personally, I think your judgings were excellent. Precise, insightful, succinct. Much better than that what's-his-name Vay-something guy that runs the joint, anyway...

:smallbiggrin:

I think you should come back again and again and again...

OK mister big shot, why don't you give it a try? :smalltongue:

New round up in a few min.

[Vaynor]

Congratulations Truemane, Mewdo, Alarra, and Cryptana!

IRON POET VII: ROUND 3

Alarra vs. Mewdo: Poverty
Truemane vs. Cryptana: Paradise

Deadline: The midnight between Friday, June 19 2009 11:59 pm (EST) and Saturday, June 20 2009 12:01 am (EST).

[Vaynor]

Less than a day remains! Get those poems in!

[Cryptana]

Hi all! Here's mine. Really struggled before finally finding my inspiration.

Prompt: Paradise



Livingstone

I knew it was you hiking up the Zambesi,
the river, always swelling to bursting when you approach.
Do you wish me to rise and meet you too?

Your movement stirs the humidity,
a waver of white marching through the brush,
defying the churlish thunder.

You walk through the storm,
like you walk through boundaries,
malaria, and the death of your fellow gods.

Whole villages come, to touch you unbelieving.
But only I would ask for a kiss,
a wet tryst under the misting canopy.

Could I ask you to discover me?
The place unvisited, naked on the map,
dark as soil, unfreckled by cities.

Clouds diluted seeping through the leaves,
dripping heat enveloping us in steam.
Your cheeks glow a divine pink.

This is Africa,
what you've been searching for.

[truemane]

I don't know. I had to work almost 70 hours this week, so I spent a lot of time thinking about this piece but had precious little time to work it through. So it's mostly what I meant. But not all the way. Quite frankly I don't what to think about it. I'm happy to have anyone's opinion.

Here you go.

Prompt: Paradise


*YOINK*

[Vaynor]

For those judges that weren't aware, Mewdo will be disqualified. Alarra wins by default, but please remember to critique her poem regardless, as that is most of the reason for this contest in the first place.

[truemane]

Have you PM'd the judges, Vay? Just to let them know that their services are now requested?

[Vaynor]

Have you PM'd the judges, Vay? Just to let them know that their services are now requested?

I was about to do that actually, I've already been contacted by one of them but I'll make sure the other two are aware the current round has ended.

[dish]

Alarra:
This was a slightly unexpected take on the topic, and it definitely asks an important question - who really is poor? It reminds me of an old tramp who used to walk around the neighbourhood when I was a child; at the beginning of each summer he was the happiest person I've ever met. However, I don't think he would have been able to articulate his feelings this clearly, and that brings me to the problem I have with this poem. It seems that there is far too much 'literary' vocabulary in here (gaunt, monologue, radiate, etc) and not enough emotion. I feel that shorter, punchier vocabulary would have suited better.
Overall, however, this poem is clear, and has a strong message.

Cryptana vs truemane:
Cryptana: I enjoyed this poem even more than your last. Firstly, I'm a sucker for ambiguity. Secondly, I found it to be sensual - to the point of verging on the erotic in its implications. And thirdly, I still love your use of language: 'unfreckled by cities' - that's just beautiful. On the negative side: a few of the tense changes confused me, especially in the first stanza, and I wonder if 'Could I ask you...' might be stronger as 'Can I ask you...'? Also the narrative of Africa as being 'undiscovered' until the Europeans came is possibly a bit too nineteenth century for the present day.

truemane: You've chosen to express a very clear and unpretentious story using simple and direct language, yet you've chosen a rather contrived poetic form to fit it into. I'm having most trouble with the form. I like the refrain, and wish it appeared more frequently, but the rhyming couplets are quite uneven. Sometimes they work very well, but othertimes they just don't scan at all - which is quite jarring. I feel that rhyming couplets work best when each couplet expresses one discrete idea, so when your sentences seep over into the next couplet it also doesn't click with me. I find your aabbccd (aabbccdde in the first stanza) structure interesting, but especially because those final lines are longer, they do seem to be dangling, unfulfilled, in mid-air. On the positive side, I think the simple language you chose was absolutely correct for this poem, and I enjoyed the way you used repetition, for example with 'to me' in the second stanza.

Overall, I feel truemane did well, but my choice has to be Cryptana.

[AJWB]

Poets, I apologize again for not being able to put my judgments into words as well as you deserve. If you have any questions about my critiques, please feel free to PM me.

Alarra vs. Mewdo: Poverty
Alarra
I definitely like the message you've got going on here, and the poem flows really well (living in downtown Atlanta, it kind of strikes a familiar chord with me as well). But, I have to wonder if a bum would use words like "radiate" and "monologue." Simpler language would have made this poem really pop.
Mewdo
No entry :(
Verdict
Alarra


Truemane vs. Cryptana: Paradise
Truemane, A Gradual Canticle
Not quite what I was expecting from the prompt, but I like it nonetheless. Some of the lines seem to drag on, but it works for what you're going for.
Cryptana, Livingstone
I really like the poem as a whole. It has lots of cool visualization and nice language, but the last two lines seem to detract from it all. I think the effect would have been greater if you had left out proper nouns entirely so that the reader can envision their own esoteric version of what you're saying, instead of bringing it back down to Earth.
Verdict
Truemane

[Vaynor]

It's times like these where I wish one of the poets really sucked. That was we could have a clear victor and not have to wait for another judge. Alas, talent.

[Kneenibble]

I was kidnapped by international terrorists on my flight from Mumbai to London back in May. I was sitting beside the most interesting man named Gibreel Farishta. Let me just say that the story is too long to be told and too strange to be believed.

Would the impropriety of my returning to the doubtlessly seat-warmed chair of judgement be too great to outweigh the relief of contestents and organizers alike? Indignity, the pleasures of closure? Resentment, the sweetness of an arreigned victory?

How do you make a King Lear?
PUT THE PRINCE IN A BIKINI.

Homophobic disgust, the delight of camp?

Tell me.

[Zeb The Troll]

Kneenibble!

*googles Gibreel Farishta*

Oh, you almost had me there... :smallcool:

[dish]

...

Would the impropriety of my returning to the doubtlessly seat-warmed chair of judgement be too great to outweigh the relief of contestents and organizers alike? Indignity, the pleasures of closure? Resentment, the sweetness of an arreigned victory?

...

I, for one, would be delighted to hear your judgements so we can get on to the next round and read more wonderful poems.

(Is Satanic Verses your favourite Rushdie?)

[Lord Loss]

maybe i'll compete next time... I arrived too late... :smallfrown: Ah well... The poems are really good this time around... congrats, all! (if there's a shortage of Judges I'm in!)

[Alarra]

(if there's a shortage of Judges I'm in!)

There is a shortage of judges...if you're interested, we'd love to have your judgments on the ones that are up now. :smallsmile:

[Vaynor]

Well we have a judge (Kneenibble) but he is rather late. If you'd like to judge that would be great, unless he posts his judgments before you start.

[truemane]

*Peeks Head in*

Judges? Hello? Anyone?

Beuller?

[PhoeKun]

If I felt I could render impartial judgment, I'd have been all over this like something on a something of something. Unfortunately, I really don't think I can.

My little heart is wavering this way and that...

[Felixaar]

I'll judge, and I'll do it right now.

By the way, in future circumstances, as soon as there's a need for a judge, PM me.

For I am... THE JUDGE MAN!!

Anyway.

Cryptana V. Truemane
As tempting as it is to give this one to Cryptana, I've got to go with Truemane. See, while Cryptana's poem is well written, and also gives me warm, fuzzy (and humid) memories of Africa (heads up, it's zambezi), Truemane's touches on one of those little things that is often at the core of a long term relationship, and is a better turn on the prompt. However, I have to say it annoyed me that you did the whole "broken sentences" thing. I despise it!

Alarra
Zer well written, and innovative too. A good use and an interesting perspective as well as a good turn on the prompt - fantastic.

[Vaynor]

Thanks Felixaar!

And that makes our final round contestants...

ALARRA VS. TRUEMANE!!

((I hope that's sufficiently glorious))

[Vaynor]

Iron Poet VII: Round 4 (Final Round)

Alarra vs. Truemane: Wonder (http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n166/Danielle448831/fantasyworldWPbg.jpg)

Deadline: The midnight between July 19th, 2009 11:59 pm (EST) and July 20th, 2009 12:01 am (EST).

[AJWB]

Awesome prompt for the final round. Can't wait to see what masterpieces our poets compose :smallcool:

Good luck, poets! Don't disappoint me :smallbiggrin:

[Vaynor]

The contest is getting pretty close to being over. Just a reminder. I will send PMs tonight if poems are not posted by then.

[truemane]

Okay. I really had a hard time with this prompt. I spent all week banging my head against the hard brick wall of inspiration to no avail. Eventually I was able to put this together and work it till it worked it as well as it could work.

As it were.

So here you go.

Also, I see we've only minutes left and no Alarra. Which makes me nervous. I hope I Have the right day. I hope she does, too.


*YOINK*

[dish]

First impressions:

You've both saved the best for last. I'm muttering and mumbling and cursing and grumbling here. How on earth to judge this one?

[AJWB]

I agree with dish. Phenomenal work, both of you. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a coin to flip...

:smalltongue: Kidding, of course. These will take at least a day to stew, though. I'll have something Wednesday evening at the latest.

[AJWB]

Alarra vs. Truemane: Wonder
Alarra
Fine work as always, Alarra. The language, tone, and imagery was "wonderful" :smalltongue:. Good structure, good flow, but I think the ending actually takes away some of the power of the poem. I think it's the mix of things you have going in the poem that makes the two parts disagree with each other in a way. I'm having a hard time putting it into words, but celestial/alien encounters combined with drug hallucinations together just don't seem to go together in this particular concept. Going with one or the other would have strengthened this poem, in my opinion.
Truemane
In a word, gorgeous. The more I read this poem the more it grows on me. The imagery you present absolutely nails the prompt and paints some beautiful pictures in my mind.
Verdict
Truemane

[dish]

I tried writing this last night, but wasn't able to finish it. Third time lucky I hope:
truemane:
This is a lovely lyrical poem which deals with the prompt admirably. It's floaty, fey, and fantastical, as well as being rather adorably romantic. There is some lovely imagery and your vocabulary fits the theme perfectly (glitter-motes and perfumed-breezes and all).
I found the metre rather disappointing. The second line, "There in the field where the grass met the sky," tantalizes me with the promise of a wonderful waltzing dactylic rhythm which would have suited the poem nicely, but, sadly, it wasn't to be. I also find your tendency to run phrases over lines (such as in lines 3-5) to be a bit jarring. I had to stop and re-read a few times, which does rather disrupt the flow.
Overall, however, this poem is almost reminiscent of early Yeats - and that's quite impressive.

Alarra:
This is an intriguing narrative poem, which also suits the prompt well. While there still is some academic vocabulary floating around in there, overall your word-choices feel much more playful and fitting (life boats, light boats - yay!) than before.
I like the way each line of your poem draws my attention and has an impact while still slipping easily into the narrative structure.
I find the gritty ending to be a nice palate-cleanser after the sugary start, and together I feel they hit just the right note of sour-sweet. It's as if the grimy realism counterbalances the excess of fantasy and gives it a little ironic twist.

Verdict:
I'm going to vote for Alarra.

[Zeb The Troll]

Ooo, juicy.

[Vaynor]

Ok, so I'm leaving for a little over a week to go camping in Sequoia. Someone else can go ahead and start up the first round of the contest if you want, or you can just wait until I return.

[Zeb The Troll]

In the interest of getting writers and judges collected, I'll start a thread for you here in a minute. I have a sneaking hunch that by the time you get back we'll still need a handful of each. If not - I'll do my best. :smallcool:

EDIT: New thread is here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=119306).

NOTE: This one's not quite done yet! The judging is at a tie!

[Vaynor]

Awesome thanks!

I'm going to PM Felixaar now (he said if we needed a judge...) and hopefully he'll break the tie as soon as possible.

[McBish]

So being no expert on Poetry but enjoying it, I recently started looking here and found these threads. I have been highly impressed by all the work I've seen here, and would like to get involved. I've signed up for the next competition, but if you really need a judge to finish up this one I'd take some time and put up my judgment for these. Not that it will be easy, after reading both of them several times I know I will need more time to look them over and post what I think, not to mention try to write up some clear thoughts for what I think.

So let me know if you need me to be the 3rd judge.

[truemane]

If you're waiting for official permission, McBish, I say go ahead. Not that my permission is the least bit official, but I say have on.

[McBish]

Right so here is my first attempt at judging. First off let me say when I read a poem I judge them mostly with instinct at first but then dig deeper figuring out why I like or don't like the poem. My first thought about these was, "Wow." So let's see how I did at figuring out why.

Truemane
Your poem touched on a topic that I have read and heard many times before, the fey in the woods. And you did an excellent job painting a wonderful picture of this. I love the repeated phrases in the 2nd 4th and 6th used to connect the 3 main acts of this poem. This technique is often very hard to pull off and you did a wonderful job doing so. Your turn of phrase is very skillfully done and not a word was wasted.

Alarra
Your poem really impressed me in regards to the prompt. What is wonder besides fantasy, and you created this fantasy very well. It was very interesting to read and a highly original look at the mind of a drug addict. Which was highly unexpected and when it became clear that is what it was it just brought a whole new level to the poem because it went from the wonder of a fantasy and gave it a level of reality that I found very powerful. I really enjoyed the fact that the poem changed on a very basic level when we left the "dream". The language shifted to real and a bit gritty, from clean and whimsical.


Verdict.
I'm going to give this one to Alarra for her highly imaginative take on the prompt. I loved both poems but in the end, I can't believe I'm going to type this. There can be only one!

[truemane]

Thank you, McBish and dish and AJWB and Vaynor and everyone else who helped out this round.

Allow me to extend my congratulations to Alarra and we hope to see everyone over at Iron Poet VIII!

[dish]

Utmost congratulations to Alarra.
Deepest commiserations to truemane.

It was such a hard one to judge, that I knew I was going to end up feeling guilty no matter who won. Such a pity there couldn't be a tie...

Anyway, I wanted to ask:

... Not that my permission is the least bit official, but I sat have on.
What on earth does, "I sat have on," mean?

[Alarra]

I think he meant 'say', not 'sat'.
And, thanks :smallsmile:
I'm always surprised when I win these things, especially when it comes down against someone like Truemane, who I consider one of the best writers on here. Your poem was really great.

[PhoeKun]

I think he meant 'say', not 'sat'.
And, thanks :smallsmile:
I'm always surprised when I win these things, especially when it comes down against someone like Truemane, who I consider one of the best writers on here. Your poem was really great.

Doesn't the fact that you are "always surprised when you win" imply you win these things often enough that you shouldn't be surprised? :smalltongue:

You write well. Hold your head high. :smallsmile:

[truemane]

Absolutely you write well, Alarra. The degree to which you've improved in just a few contests is remarkable. And you were pretty darned good to begin with, so that's not a left-handed compliment.

And yes, I meant "I say have on..."