ForumsArt, Music, and WritingOfficial Poetry Contests - Theme: Sunshine (Due: May 31)

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Devoidless
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Devoidless
3,678 posts
Jester

Welcome to the newest contest on ArmorGames!

This is the new and improved version of both the Periodic Poetry Contest and the Haiku Contest. From this point out, both contests will be combined into one massive contest for everyone to enjoy! And as such, each user is allowed to enter is both contests with separate entries if they so desire, effectively doubling the odds of winning.
Each contest (One being general poetry and the other exclusively haiku) will have one winner every month. Every month, two winners (one from each contest shall be chosen and receive a merit for all their hard work. Show it off to your friends, gloat about it to your enemies! Tell your parents about it and confuse them! It's a win-win-win-win-win scenario, folks.

Rules

General Poetry Contest:
- It must fit the theme if the month (same theme as the Haiku Contest).
- It must be submitted by the deadline.
- It cannot have inappropriate language in it.
- It cannot be stolen (if you plagiarize, we will find you).
- The poem must be created for this contest
- A user cannot win twice in a row (though everyone is welcome to submit every month!)
- Only one submission per user will be accepted

Once a month a winner will be chosen from all the received entries. To begin, the Moderation/Administration Team will act as judges and choose winners. Subject to change depending on how well things go.
The winner will then make a comment on the ContestWinners profile to receive a merit.
(Original idea by ubertuna, itemized rules by DragonMistress, modified by Devoidless)

Haiku Contest
"A Haiku is a Japanese lyric verse form having three unrhymed lines of five, seven, and five syllables, traditionally invoking an aspect of nature or the seasons."
Well, that said, here are the rules:
- It must fit the theme of the month (same as General Poetry Contest)
-The haiku must be original (no plagiarizing)!
- It must be submitted before the deadline
- It must be created for the contest (no using works previously written)
- One submission per user
- The same user cannot win twice in a row (but they are welcome to submit!)

Once a month a winner will be chosen from all the received entries. To begin, the Moderation/Administration Team will act as judges and choose winners. Subject to change depending on how well things go.
The winner will then make a post on the ContestWinners profile to receive a merit.
(Original idea and itemized rules by Maverick4, modified by Devoidless)
First Themes
The first themes to kick off this contest shall be:
- The theme for the General Poetry contest this run is "Touch of Truth".

- The theme for the Haiku contest is "Broken Bond".
Submitting an entry
Since there are two separate contests, users are required to mention in the post which contest they wish to use the entry for. Any entry without this is subject to not being entered into either contest.
Examples of how to clarify which contest an entry is for:
-

This poem is for the General Poetry contest

-
-This is for the Haiku contest

-
I'd like to enter this for the General Poetry/Haiku contest

Remember, each user is allowed to join both contests!

Alright! Looking forward to seeing what you all can create! Good luck, and have fun with it!
  • 549 Replies
pangtongshu
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pangtongshu
9,815 posts
Jester

Why the hell is kissed censored??

pangtongshu
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pangtongshu
9,815 posts
Jester

Woops..sorry for triple posting..fixing a few things.

-----

The darkness slowly crept along with swift haste,
It's brighten'd smile shadowing the land
And covering the ground in which I stand,
Whilst unveiling the enemies I face.

On either side, the other side: a smile.
A greeting from such a long farewell,
But with the obstacle of equal hell,
For such conquest I aim to quell.

The thunderous applause crack'd across the sky
As the cloudless night drew an eerie silence.
Their gazes grazing over me; silent.
Tonight shall be the lovers' final goodbye.

I feel their stares, trying to pierce through,
As if it'd be any help for them.
I stand, intrepid, waiting to condemn,
but with a sudden movement the chaos grew.

The lover to my left darted violently,
While the other grac'd along carefully.
He must have thought she did so beautifully,
But not so much as my blade pass'd through silently.

Her body hit the ground ever so peacefully,
Ever so gracefully, with never more a breath.
And when I kiss'd her cheeks, cover'd with death,
His rage exploded, and he charg'd forcefully.

Never shall you know the look of true intent,
The look of a man with no more left to lose.
The look of a man whose inner being has been let loose.
The look of a man as, from his body, his head is sent.

His body crumpled to the ground
As I took in the silence of the area.
But again broke out mass hysteria,
As she came down with a most impressive sound.

Love, or so you all call her,
Spoke to me with a voice truly serene.
"You may have taken their lives clean,
But more are out there, and you they abhor."

Then, at once, she was gone as she came.
A tyrannical one, she really is,
Vying to rule all with the ruse of loving bliss.
So, in order to halt her, I became.

I am view'd the villain, until one's final breath.
Such is the price to pay for being Death.

Gantic
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Gantic
11,892 posts
King

Next theme will most likely be Google Poems unless there is good reason for it not to be. It will not be strictly Google poems in case people find themselves in a bind, but it will be a found poem based on search engine suggestions.

Gantic
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Gantic
11,892 posts
King

POETRY
MathWiz99

Under the old oak tree,
Fighting their battles evermore,
in hopes to getting freed.
For they were meant to be war criminals,
For a war still going on around them,
Both were wounded deeply,
But they held hands everstill.
As the fight grew on,
the Lovers stayed where they were,
Until a cold hand wheeled them,
off in a cart,
for death do them part.

It tells a story but it doesn't show crucial bits to infer the greater story. Other than being told so, it doesn't show or hint why they were meant to be war criminals.

theconquerer111
War causes love and death,
and in each some are lost.
Take for instance, Beth.
She has paid the ultimate cost.
Or take a look at Seth.
He always is getting bossed.
Those who cannot handle
the power of love and death,
are destined to be caught in
The War of Love and Death.

It seems the rhyme scheme disappeared in the middle and then ended by rhyming power with war. The rhyming is a bit forced. This one also has a lot of telling but not much showing. How does War cause Love?

THIRD
Riptizoid101

A war that is fought without an army,
Battles that are fought without guns,
Usually fought with words that are smarmy
Yet their words still weigh many tons,
However, both sides conjoin if they no longer develop
A common cause; A goal which both of them
Wished to achieve. A goal which enveloped
Both of them. Their fate had them condemned
Because it was no longer there.

The two fought as foes,
But they withered away, blessed
As friends, And although
Feelings could never be expressed,
Their happiness was guaranteed.

The rhyming feels forced because it doesn't read naturally. The repetition or rather the redundancy in the middle works to illustrate a back and forth conflict but it gets vague after the first four lines.

SECOND
pangtongshu

The darkness slowly crept along with swift haste,
It's brighten'd smile shadowing the land
And covering the ground in which I stand,
Whilst unveiling the enemies I face.

On either side, the other side: a smile.
A greeting from such a long farewell,
But with the obstacle of equal hell,
For such conquest I aim to quell.

The thunderous applause crack'd across the sky
As the cloudless night drew an eerie silence.
Their gazes grazing over me; silent.
Tonight shall be the lovers' final goodbye.

I feel their stares, trying to pierce through,
As if it'd be any help for them.
I stand, intrepid, waiting to condemn,
but with a sudden movement the chaos grew.

The lover to my left darted violently,
While the other grac'd along carefully.
He must have thought she did so beautifully,
But not so much as my blade pass'd through silently.

Her body hit the ground ever so peacefully,
Ever so gracefully, with never more a breath.
And when I kiss'd her cheeks, cover'd with death,
His rage exploded, and he charg'd forcefully.

Never shall you know the look of true intent,
The look of a man with no more left to lose.
The look of a man whose inner being has been let loose.
The look of a man as, from his body, his head is sent.

His body crumpled to the ground
As I took in the silence of the area.
But again broke out mass hysteria,
As she came down with a most impressive sound.

Love, or so you all call her,
Spoke to me with a voice truly serene.
"You may have taken their lives clean,
But more are out there, and you they abhor."

Then, at once, she was gone as she came.
A tyrannical one, she really is,
Vying to rule all with the ruse of loving bliss.
So, in order to halt her, I became.

I am view'd the villain, until one's final breath.
Such is the price to pay for being Death.

It tells a story that fits the theme well, but the execution could be improved. The construction doesn't hold up the content well. The erratic rhyme scheme though doesn't work here where the speaker appears to try too give an air of power and formality. It's mostly ABBA with perfect, imperfect, and slant rhymes and the second stanza is ABBB. It would've been better one (or two) way or another. Also, I'm quite certain "grac'd" and "charg'd" are not legitimate apostrophes because "grac" and "charg" are not words.

FIRST
StarSprite

A never ending war between mankind.
Not over land and gold,
But of hearts and growing old.
We all want just one,
To keep to ourselves.
Our lovely little secret,
In our souls held by a spell.

A most blissful feeling,
That cannot be compared.
A personal journey,
With only one that can be shared.
But what is true bliss,
Without catastrophe?
How can we reach true joy,
Without agony?

Is not the taste sweeter,
When its prologue was sour?
I can't tell if the poem is supposed to rhyme but not really or it just happened that way, but the last line is makes the poem. It concludes and touches on conflict and loss while focusing on love, which (obviously) accentuates that love is the most important or most favorable but without the contrast, it means nothing.

HAIKU
theconqueror111
Warring Love and Death,
Dragging people down with them,
Breaking others lives.

It is better to work the theme into your poem rather than stating it outright. In this context, it isn't specific to this theme. You can replace the first line with different things and the remaining lines will remain true.

MathWiz99
Earth shattered like glass
The Kiss that is always last
From shadows of them

This one is too vague and leaves me with questions. The image of earth shattering is nice, but who are "they" and what is "the Kiss"? Other then then the world falling apart, I can't infer much story behind this.

THIRD
pangtongshu

Love succeeds once more
The Lovers, perish'd, unite
Death conquers once more
This one has the weakest in terms of imagery and the story too general. Success, perish, and conquer are rather broad and don't produce a specific image, except maybe "I Hate Sandcastles".

SECOND
FallenSky

I'm sorry my love
That I had to pierce your heart
To keep you with me
This haiku is the darkest one of the five. Death and love seen not has enemies but on the same side.

FIRST
Parsat

Take cover, my love,
I lay claims on your embrace:
The right to bear arms.
Good imagery. It evokes war without mentioning war itself. And death? Well, that's a part of war.

Congratulations, MoonFairy and Parsat! Post your entries to ContestWinners to receive your merit.

The theme for July is Google Poems due July 24th, 2013. It doesn't have to be strictly a Google poem. It could be any search engine poem or simply a found poem using the suggestions from a search engine. Please include the original search term as a title or somewhere else in your post.
Gantic
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Gantic
11,892 posts
King

Eh... figures I would use irregular formatting. Muphry's Law in action. Oh well.

Salvidian
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Salvidian
4,170 posts
Farmer

Can we use song lyrics if they happen to come up?

Gantic
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Gantic
11,892 posts
King

Yes, there isn't any reason you shouldn't be able to.

Maverick4
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Maverick4
6,804 posts
Peasant

So... We win for posting someone elses poem?

Gantic
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Gantic
11,892 posts
King

If you post a poem that someone else has already found, it's still plagiarism, depending on the case. And it'd be unoriginal, even for using something found.

It's also next to impossible to find an entire poem or song in the suggestions by inputting search terms. You're certainly going to get entire six-word stories and lines from song lyrics though.

GandalftheGrey666
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GandalftheGrey666
1,859 posts
Peasant

So, we need the original search term to be our title?

Parsat
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Parsat
2,180 posts
Blacksmith

I think there's some confusion over what found poetry is. Found poetry is basically taking an existing written work and making poetry out of it by altering it: adding words, crossing out words, changing the visual layout of the piece, adding spaces, and so on.

Here are two examples that should illustrate found poetry well:
Example 1
Example 2

Gantic
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Gantic
11,892 posts
King

A bit of explanation:
The source text for your poem/haiku will be search suggestions from a search engine. It might be easier to include a screenshot of the search suggestions you used in crafting your poem when you submit. In the following examples, I will use Google and "I cannot".

If Instant search is on, you will get up to four results. These four results are what form a Google poem.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v226/blackcairn/GP1_zps26ff0e04.png
You can submit as is if you think it good enough:

I cannot lie
I cannot lose weight
I cannot brain today
I cannot believe my eyes.


If Instant search is off, you will get up to ten results.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v226/blackcairn/GP2_zps9a5545bd.png
You can pick out select phrases if you like:
I cannot lie
I cannot sleep
I cannot live with you


or maybe mix the phrases ordering of the lines:
I sleep a man wishing
I lie, I live with you
I cannot create, I cannot focus
I cannot, today I lose


or try a Haiku
my eyes with wishing
today I lose sleep with you
focus a new lie

or something better with better search terms.

For Haiku, you're definitely going to have to take some words out unless you're willing to try to find a haiku straight out of the search results, but those are rare and rarely something workable.

Not all search terms are equal. You will frequently come across "lyrics".
Not all regions are equal. You'll get search suggestions depending on the region you are searching from.
Not all people are equal. Logging into Google also affects your search suggestions.
Play around, find possibilities, and work with what you think is the best.
You can try search engines other than Google, as well.
Gantic
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Gantic
11,892 posts
King

Could you also include the search term you used?

Salvidian
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Salvidian
4,170 posts
Farmer

Search term & results:

Why?
Why am I always tired?
Why am I always cold?
Why am I always hungry?

EmperorPalpatine
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EmperorPalpatine
9,444 posts
Jester

Haiku Contest
What Did I...?
What did I do wrong?
What did I do to deserve
This? What did I miss?

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