Welcome to the first 3-way battle! For the next while this will be the number of contestants in the battles! (trying something out)
Topic: Luck and Revenge (make sure to use both elements)
1 day to write
2 days to vote thereafter!
GO!
Failure should push you until success can pull you.
Here's my entry
The day turns dark
as the birds flock
My love is no more
dead at the door
he shot her in the back
then ran back to his shack
I know I must avenge her
her love I would kill for
I grab my gun from my room
and take off to his tomb
He was ready though
hit me with a hard blow
My gun hit the ground
and out came one round
by luck it settled the score
for he too was dead at the door
Here's mine:
The fact that once motivated,
now causes only corruption,
Events being initiated,
breeding both happiness and destruction.
Either able to lead to triumph,
or leave you destined to sadness,
one is considered as chance,
the other a desire from madness.
A relationship between the two,
can consistently exist,
In view as it is most of the time,
but still is often dismissed.
Forms of harm or help they take,
causing or easing pain
but, just as luck would have it,
revenge is had again.
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here's mine:
What started out as best laid plans,
now only causes corruption.
Bringing you down the beaten path,
to happiness or destruction.
Both can lead to victory,
or bring about great sadness.
One is considered as mere chance,
the other, a desire from madness.
Though the two seem so different,
a relationship can exist,
In plain view as it is mostly,
it still is often dismissed.
From intents to harm or help they stem,
causing or easing pain.
But, just as luck would have it,
revenge is had again.
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here's mine:
What started out as best laid plans,
now only causes corruption.
Bringing you down the beaten path,
to happiness or destruction.
Both can lead to victory,
or bring about great sadness.
One is considered as mere chance,
the other, a desire from madness.
Though the two seem so different,
a relationship can exist,
In plain view as it is mostly,
it still is often dismissed.
Whether from harmful or helpful intentions they stem,
causing or easing great pain.
Still, just as luck would have it,
revenge comes forth again.
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IMPORTANT:
Please ignore the first two posts of my poem. I accidentally posted them. My bad..heh. The post above this one is my real post.
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This poem is about how a man's lucky early contrasted with what the devil planne for him.
In days long ago past
I knew a tragic man
Burdened by revenge
And like most men
Who share this burden
Long, he didn't last
For in his terrible past
Upon him, evil was cast
But before this evil
Was subjected
And happiness
Was neglected
He had a good life
A faithful wife
And with riches
He was rife
But, to his bliss
The devil
Objected
And misery
Was projected
Oh alas
His joy
Didn't last
And the bride
Of his marriage
Was solemnly struck
With a miscarriage
And the unborn's fate
Soon fell upon her too
And adamantly he asked
Who did this, who!
And his fury was ignited
When his wife's killer
Was explicitly sighted
And he did the deed
That can't be spoken
And his madness was
Abruptly awoken
In his final hours
With vast misery
As tall as towers
His early luck
Was no more
And to fiery hell
He opened the door
I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing
Than teach 10,000 stars how not to dance.
-- ee cummings
Sorry, I mean this poem is about how a man's early luck in life contrasted greatly with what the devil planned for him.
I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing
Than teach 10,000 stars how not to dance.
-- ee cummings
Well now that all three three poems were submitted, you can start voting!
I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing
Than teach 10,000 stars how not to dance.
-- ee cummings
I'm gonna vote for Earthshine's
/cheating
I don't care if people know me. I'm just there. I'm like the lead
based paint in a Chinese sweat shop. There.
ummmm . . . . . goddamn. well, I'll give feedback first and then my vote, due to teh fact Im still trying to decide.
@Dubbi: The entire thing seemed a bit forced. The form of the poem was good but the basis of it was generic and it seemed you got trapped in the rhymes.
@Earthshine: Nice, neat poem. Once again the story was a bit generic but the final touch of luck in the end was nice.
@zach: Good poem, a good point of view on both revenge and luck, well written.
I'm gonna have to say Zach's, but Earth's and Dubbi's were incredibly close behind.
My regards,
Mr. 666
The writer must write what he has to say, not speak it. - E. Hemingway
Ill vote for Zach's, since i feel it is deeper. The way the flow, yet are not forced, make me happy. Right behind was EarthShine's since i felt the stry he told was more gangster like, and too rhmeful, It was more of a rap than a poem. And last is Dubbi. I felt that it was a bit to forced, and that you tried to start rhhyming, yet failed.
Zach has my vote.
- Dan
Sig done by LifeStream
Earthshine: Your poem was slightly entertaining, but that's it. It never really grabbed me or shook me up or anything. It was just kind of there.
zachdamacman: It was okay. I don't think that your seriousness of your capitalization necessarily jived with your rhyme scheme. It was fairly interesting, though.
Dubbi: By far the most exploratory of the themes, your poem was long and epic. However, I feel you made some sacrifices to maintain a rhythm. These sacrifices probably could have been averted with a thesaurus, but I'm overlooking that because you only had a day to write it.
Dubbi has my vote.
Hey, flash artists, want an idea? Check this out: The Scarecrew
And everyone, please check out the latest humorous spy serial, The Frank Keretta Stories
At 2/28/10 05:50 PM, stimcrab wrote:
Dubbi: By far the most exploratory of the themes, your poem was long and epic. However, I feel you made some sacrifices to maintain a rhythm. These sacrifices probably could have been averted with a thesaurus, but I'm overlooking that because you only had a day to write it.
Dubbi has my vote.
Can you please elaborate on my mistakes, I need to know what I did wrong before I can improve. :)
I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing
Than teach 10,000 stars how not to dance.
-- ee cummings
At 2/28/10 06:11 PM, Dubbi wrote:
Can you please elaborate on my mistakes, I need to know what I did wrong before I can improve. :)
Your poem seemed like your were going out of your way to rhyme and fit the beat. You don't have to do that.
Thank god for Free verse
The writer must write what he has to say, not speak it. - E. Hemingway
Sure!
Basically my main problem with it is that you switched word order to maintain the constant rhythm. I really admire a poet who can write with rhythm because I flat-out just gave up on that a while ago; you're at least trying and I give you points for that. However, when you switch word order to maintain the rhythm, it becomes obvious that rhythm is being used because it draws attention to it; this just means that any smoothness made by the rhythm is immediately negated by the changing of word order.
My advice for correcting this is using a thesaurus to find words that do fit the rhythm automatically. A little bit of change in the semantics of the verbiage is preferable, I've found, to switching the word order. Or, another thing you can do is stall for time, by which I mean add a filler statement. By a filler statement, I mean that you add perhaps an extra preposition, prepositional phrase, qualifier, etc. so that your rhythm requirements for that line are met, and you can continue one the same line of thought on the next line. A good poet to emulate in this regard is John Donne; one particular poem, Holy Sonnet X, has exactly the techniques I've described to you.
Good luck, and keep using meter. If you get good enough, maybe you can convince me to use it again.
Hey, flash artists, want an idea? Check this out: The Scarecrew
And everyone, please check out the latest humorous spy serial, The Frank Keretta Stories
Thanks for the compliments and votes HeroDan and Subject666. I really appreciate them.
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I'm hardly a poem expert, but I'm giving my vote, as well as my first forum post, to Zach : )
The poem uses effective word choice while still maintaining a smooth flow.
@Earthshine: Your poem was nice, but was mildly clunkier than Zach's, although your pithy storytelling and imagery were nice.
@ Dubbi: Your poem contained good ideas that at times proved moving, but it seemed forced at times (such as lines 13-16 "He...rife").
Anyways, nice job and best of luck in all endeavors to all of you.
okay, zachdamacman gets my vote, simply because he is the most obscure, and masks the theme in his writing. I love an author who challenges me to read between the lines.
At 2/28/10 09:30 PM, totojimbob wrote: I'm hardly a poem expert, but I'm giving my vote, as well as my first forum post, to Zach : )
Welcome to the Forum!
On to the voting...
Earthshine suffered from some rhythm and rhyme issues. If you're going for meter and rhyme, you need to get your balls to the wall about it. pseudo-rhymes are good for highlighting passages in non-rhymed pieces, it makes them stand out... however, they tend to have a damping effect on rhymed pieces because they don't work as well. Also, I think the story you told could use some expansion. I enjoyed the fact that he gets revenge through luck by dropping his gun and it going off and killing his rival, but there could be more build-up and maybe even some more subtle instances of luck allowing him to gain his revenge... and then perhaps luck taking it's revenge on our protagonist as well? An excellent start, and with some work it could be a very good piece.
Zach has, I believe the most complete idea here, but it still needs some polishing. I actually enjoyed seeing the three different versions posted... as though watching him polish a stone and seeing it get brighter and brighter over time. Still, there's some polish to be done. The final couplet is perfect, the thesis of your poem, and should be the paradigm you use for the rest of the piece.
Dubbi has the most compelling story, rife with emotion and conflict, but as others have said, struggles with vocabulary choices and forced rhymes. I am of the opinion that poetry should have one (or more) of three things going for it: Rhythm, Imagery, and/or Phonetics. Phonetics includes (but isn't limited to) rhyme, but within rhyme is the implied rhythm of a meter that makes the rhyme work. Imagery can stand on its own or use either of the other two, and I think that here is really where Dubbi's poem should stand. Unfortunately, you had great imagery but tried to force phonetics into it and sacrificed rhythm. Had you stayed away from the rhymes, I think it would have held up much better, and given you a bit more freedom to express your ideas.
All in all, my vote goes to Dubbi, for his excellent use of emotion, though it was a tough call and if he scored a 95 on the scale, Zach would have scored a 93. Excellent work all around!
Earthshine: 1
Zachdamacman: 4
Dubbi: 2
Tis better to sit in silence and be presumed a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt.
Zachdamacman, for sure. His seemed to flow the best to me, I'm to tired to offer constructive criticism though XD.
Thank you MaliciousAngel, megakill, and totojimbob. This is actually the first poem I have written in probably two years so I'm kind of out of the groove, but I'm hoping to get back my best. Thank you too Ravariel.
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Very nice battle so far! You all are doing great. Keep it up.
Failure should push you until success can pull you.
This was a great battle and I feel that everyone did great! However there was a winner...
Earthshine: 1
Zachdamacman: 5
Dubbi: 2
Grats Zach and good job everyone!
Failure should push you until success can pull you.
