We may use cookies to help customize your experience, including performing
analytics and serving ads.
Learn More
Forums → Art, Music, and Writing → Official Poetry Contests - Theme: Sunshine (Due: May 31)
| 551 | 392948 |
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!
- 551 Replies
There was only one input for the results of this round, the is once again rather one-sided and dry. The winners for Haiku and General Poetry are below, but first, some digression.
What are Floors? Floors are, unlike the ground, artefacts everyone uses everyday; yet, not one everyone has intimate experiences with (but certainly one everyone have intimate experiences upon), like computers or bowls. Floors are something everyone is comfortable with but it is also something to push everyone out of their comfort zone.
Conveyance of the theme of your poem, not necessarily the theme of the round, is crucial (unless the relation to the theme is almost nonexistent). Relating to the theme of the round is as easy as tacking it on somewhere within the body of the poem, which is not something someone should actively engage in, but being able to communicate what is being said in a way that makes sense to most people helps immensely. Vagueness and vagaries obfuscate intent and leaves the reader guessing. It helps to read a poem aloud, not just in your head to see if it makes sense on its own, outside of the context of the contest.
==HAIKU==
FIRST - EmperorPalapatine
Ding! The doors open;
People come and people go,
Some stay where they are.
Succinct and poignant. It evokes the sense of floors as a means of stratification. Not a word is wasted to paint the picture of an elevator lobby (or some sort of cooking competition involving the use of the oven and a timer that goes ding!), where some people come, some people go, and some stay where they are. This can be applied in a general sense to how people may handle life and other situations. That is not to say this falls into the trap of simply categorizing people as comers, goers, and stayers. Motives and possibilities must also be examined. Maybe those who stay are waiting for someone to come, or someone to go, or a different elevator. Who knows why people move about?
SECOND - Parsat
Lunchtime
on the gray carpet
sharing my homemade bento
munch, munch, poignant pause
Succinct and poignant. The floor is a thing upon which other things happen, not a medium but a substrate. This haiku applies not only to the grammatical subject of the poem, but also the reader. When the haiku is done, the reader is given pause before realization, maybe the same realization.
THIRD - kimo2001
It's used to define
Levels of society
But it never works
Given no context, it could be said this is about floors and it might also apply to other things, but there is context given by the author. However, the poem doesn't suggest why it, whatever it is, doesn't work, though, and leaves the reader to fill in the gaps. It could be construed that people aren't and that is what I chose to take from it.
The rest by order of submission:
AxialCurses
Be still, beating heart!
Curse you and the noise you make
under the floorboards!
This haiku was admittedly not very original, being based on Poe's The Telltale Heart, but if the theme were something different, say Poe, this would certainly be a contender for placement. Floors are a means of hiding what's below.
HUA7XFan122396
Old, wooden floorboards
Supporting my family.
I thank them for this.
This haiku is simple in its message in a person thankful for a home, however mundane.
MagicTree
The Tower of Life
The Tower of Life,
Its steps winding upward,
Floors, to be conquered.
The commas here left me confused a bit as it's not really a grammatical sentence and I couldn't make sense of the breaks, but I do get the message. Floors are like levels in a video game. The goal is to get as high as possible.
HahiHa
Got a promotion,
Up up to floor five hundred;
Embrace cold darkness.
Floors here are also to be conquered, but at what price? Similar in theme to other entries, but the imagery here is less strong. In what form does cold darkness take? Is floor 500 high enough to be in the outer atmosphere?
theni
I lie on the ground
The earth solid below me
Moves on without me
Sometimes people are too tired to go on and just lay it all down. The floor is support for even the weariest and it never tires in its support.
Salvidian
The ground must shatter
We should take it down a notch
Though there's no hammer
What is the motive for breaking the floor and taking it down a notch with a hammer? Wild in it's content but confusing in it's intent.
killersup10
Hard wooden blunt wall
Divides the up from the down
Protector of feet
The images here confuse me. The floors are walls that keep things out, but what is down that must be separated from the up to protect the feet?
nichodemus
Is this the flat floor,
Or the ceiling of a room?
Inverse universe.
I like the question of what is up and down, but I find the last line to be redundant.
Reton8
Creaking echoes out,
Smoothness underneath I felt,
A cold wooden floor.
The cold, smooth floorboards creak. Probably waxed recently. Probably no one else awake, if not no one else around at all, but I'm not sure what else I'm supposed to take from this. Alone, but how alone? Maybe everyone's gone to bed or not yet woken up.
Goldfish13
Walls, doors, floors and boards,
Avalanche falls. Rattling roars.
Moving floor - no more!
A rhyming haiku, or at least one with slant rhyme and some internal rhyme. The middle line actually has 8 syllables by my count. Perhaps the floor was destroyed or, like in TV-land, just surfed down the mountain undamaged.
pangtongshu
The mold crept along
Standing ground for times, destroyed
He finds fault within
The images here seem confused, or maybe it's the construction. Unfortunately, I can make no sense of the middle line and without it, any meaning is incomplete.
POETRY
There were only three general poetry entries, exclusive wolf1991, who won the last round.
wolf1991
This is Where we Meet
Separating us, a rug,
An Afghan if I ever saw one.
Laying thing, lying there,
I'm not sure which, and,
To be frankly honest, to be
Frankly clear, frankly my dear,
I do not, so much, if it were,
Give a care. Just look at the
Afghan, laying, lying there.
There are a dozen dozen,
Dozen dozen, hundred spaces
Separating us, between you,
The rug (the Afghan) and I.
And for what? What? What?
Deaf men tell no tales. There's
The rug and nothing more.
The rug and the space. Between
Us, and that's all.
This is where we meet,
We meet here every day,
Every hour and minute,
I do not focus on you,
But the rug, between our feet.
Between our lives, on the floor
Fifty feet from the door.
Laying, lying on the floor. And
All that I see, that is left,
That is the tangible part,
Of whatever this is (was)
Is an Afghan.
An Afghan rug is laying,
(Lying) between us, on the
Floor. Fifty feet from the door.
FIRST - Quirinus1
General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade
Towering brothers, offspring of hybris,
You call yourself fair, you call yourself free;
do you not see your true hypocrisy?
You will be ravaged, God is my witness.
My bauxite casing in sapphire air,
shall force itself in your virgin body
and leave blood-red scarring memory.
Everyone shall know, to God I swear.
Story. Upon.
Story. Upon.
Floor. Upon.
Floor. Upon.
You.
Hideous, heathen.
May the hatred in my heart
fill your house, your spouse your hearth.
Floors, not flowers shall cover my graveyard.
And in my death, you shall be my neighbour.
I get the picture of money and wealth and minerals, particularly ceramics (bauxite and sapphire) but this can be extrapolated even further to such ceramics (and ceramic composites) as granite and marble which are "foundations" of wealth. Marble and granite floors are certainly richer, more luxuriant than the a wooden floor, or cheap bathroom tiles, linoleum or brick.
This is a digression, but what strikes me is the ambiguity of gerunds and also aluminum. It's likely unintentional but a "bauxite casing" in "sapphire air" is very different from "bauxite" casing in "sapphire air". Some digression, but bauxite is naturally crude and rough, the mineral from which aluminum is refined and even in its refined state, it is still not comparable rough sapphire, which is alumina that isn't red (which is ruby). There is also the history of aluminum. Aluminum used to be worth more than gold, due to the difficulty in obtaining it from ore. Back on topic, a "bauxite casing" in "sapphire air" is something naturally rough in something naturally refined whereas "bauxite" casing in "sapphire air" is something naturally rough holding in something naturally refined. This spills into the next line where the bauxite, either in sapphire air or containing sapphire air, figuratively forces its way into the body of the grammatical object. I could ramble on, but this is getting long enough as it is.
Lonely World
Darkness, in the lonely house,
My footsteps, falling on the wooden planks.
The silence hinting at the worse.
The world howls at my existence,
The floorboards moan their ghastly song,
When I let the pain out.
Ice in my once-warm heart,
The floor collapses beneath me,
For it cannot hold on anymore.
Neither can I.
This poem shows a creaky lonely house. This may be night time, in an abandoned house, maybe on a dare, or a looting. The imagery isn't as strong as in the other two submissions, as it's given to cliched metaphors.
THIRD - nichodemus
Standby Bed
Fly, fly up the stairs!
Ten minutes and nothing more,
Run, run from his glare,
And for God's sake, clean the floor!
Recruit, in the toilet now,
Dry as his dead sense of humour,
Not a drop of water he'll allow!
Quick! Watch the sergeant's temper!
Scrub, mop, dry the tiles,
Wipe them with used newspapers,
Better yet, wipe off your smile!
You bloody maggot, you're a soldier!
Spotted the faint spot of grime,
What's this, he loudly bellows,
You've had far enough time,
So what should I do with you fellows?
Permission to carry on sergeant!
The whole lot knock it down!
Time ticks, make it urgent!
And I swear it lessens his frown.
I'll admit that this one threw me. The tone is confusing and that's what I counted against it. The poem has a strange lilting rhythm that's jarring in that it gives a sense of a singing swashbuckling crew of jolly pirates, but also the rush of getting things done as instructed by a sergeant barking orders. It's very dissonant feeling.
Corrections: Second place for poetry was MagicTree. I seem to have left that out.
Congratulations, EmperorPalpatine and Quirinus1! Please post your winning entry to ContestWinners to receive your merit.
The theme for May is Mamihlapinatapai due May 23rd, 2013. Please click on the link for an explanation if you are not already familiar with this word. While the word may appear foreign, the concept should be familiar.
What are Floors? Floors are, unlike the ground, artefacts everyone uses everyday; yet, not one everyone has intimate experiences with (but certainly one everyone have intimate experiences upon), like computers or bowls. Floors are something everyone is comfortable with but it is also something to push everyone out of their comfort zone.
Question..did you just give us the obscure meaning you meant for the theme to encompass...after the round ended?
The images here seem confused, or maybe it's the construction. Unfortunately, I can make no sense of the middle line and without it, any meaning is incomplete.
I fail to see what is so confusing about the middle line? It even has two meanings
Standing ground..a location in which one stands. A place of solidity in one person's (i.e. the one finding fault within) in which he, many times, has stood. This idea gives the the location a much more personal level in regards to the man..implying that the "standing ground" was of his ownership and his responsibility.
Or
The location had been "standing ground" for times, implying that it has been quite durable and survived for quite some time. Then, with the self-blaming of the man in the third line, it becomes clear that the mold that destroyed the standing ground was his fault (implying he did not take enough care of the place)
In what form does cold darkness take? Is floor 500 high enough to be in the outer atmosphere?
You clearly either didn't watch, or didn't remember that one Doctor Who episode :P
Thanks for the excellent judging, Gantic. I note that my haiku is not only about floors, but also about this new theme, mamihlapinatapai, which is why I found the new theme doubly amusing.
Haiku: Theme: Mamihlapinatapai
Two unspoken thoughts
A pair of eyes staring back
Asking me to start
nice haiku contest i'll submit one of my old haiku here its in the topic later i'll search my photobucket 1st
hope you guyz like my original poem Innocence for the poetry contest this has a touch of truth in it this is what you feel if you lost someone or under depression
oh yea forgot to add wallpaper ain't mine but poem is it's a fan art for ghost in the shell
My entry in haiku i hope my haiku is right also image and poem is originally mine it's one of my old haiku 
touch of truth...Broken Bond
Those themes are done. The current theme for both contests is Mamihlapinatapai.
it's one of my old haiku
It must be created for the contest (no using works previously written)
lines of five, seven, and five syllables
oh din't know that was the theme sorry i've got nothing for that theme
Question..did you just give us the obscure meaning you meant for the theme to encompass...after the round ended?
No, just a recap in the way it was approached.
I fail to see what is so confusing about the middle line? It even has two meanings
If that's the case, your construction made it strange. The breaks and grammar aren't natural and it seems like you tried to fit a longer idea in a shorter space by removing words instead of rewording it.
With the singular comma, it reads "the mold crept along standing grounds for times" "destroyed he finds faults within", so the mold is a "he" or there's a vague unnamed "he" not previously mentioned that was destroyed and his destruction was caused directly or indirectly by the mold creeping along the standing grounds. If the mold is a he, he is destroyed at a standing ground and finds fault within himself, or a general He was destroyed by mold at his last stand and finds faults within himself. That doesn't make sense to me. In between the mold creeping along and finding faults within, the connection is lost.
(Also, "for times" seems unnatural. Times is like works or loves. What sort of works? What sort of loves? Works of art? Loves of art? Works of God? all loves? impressive works? ephemeral loves? It's the sort of word that needs a qualifier. For what times? the times? long times? times of desperation? times to come? times he kept? In the singular, it's not ambiguous to what it may be as it is a general all-encompassing idea. In the plural, it's referring to specific subgroups of something, but of what?)
You must be logged in to post a reply!