Forums → Art, Music, and Writing → Periodic Poetry Contest - Theme: Touch of Truth (Page 390, due Jan. 28)
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It turns out that the turnout wasn't quite as bad as I imagined...it was 7 entries, which is actually our general average. As for the quality, well, this time the entries were basically all from the Poet Corps, so it was a great pleasure to read your poems. Apologies for the delay in judging, and I will take your criticisms to heart. So let's get started. Since we didn't have that many entries, I'll be reviewing each of your poems.
Gantic
Cast downward from the peak
In a twirling flight,
The mountain snow blows in the wind:
Dandruff on your head.
Kudos for submitting a poetry in the style of the ancients. It's a style not even Chinese people today prefer to write in (and I am not a fan of modern Chinese poetry at all). It took me a couple of rereads and some traditional-to-simplified translation to get the full meaning of every line, but I got the punchline almost immediately. The suddenness of the last line is an interesting fusion of Asian and Western styles, I thought. It's very haiku-esque, but the humor is a Western type. Very good job, and the effort is much appreciated.
Zaork
Wind
A churning rhythm.
The child plays with his toy.
A surprise long disappeared as the room leaps in delight.
The forcefully grinning facade exits, he withdraws.
Painted face of the jack bounces back and forth like a demonic survivor.
Bitter faces search in expectation of a response, any response.
There must be a fault in the system proclaims a moving wall.
Concerned for their sanity, the innocent bursts into life. Relief as they gather once more.
Act two.
The lid closes as a churning rhythm numbs.
The challenge in this poem for me was not to figure out what was being described in the poem, but why it evoked the emotion of the grotesque in me, and what wind had to do with it. I liked that image of the "churning rhythm," and just thinking about it made me shiver. We often refer to the wind of change, and when that change springs upon us like the jack in the jack in the box through that "fault in the system" we await it with so much expectation that it turns into a "forcefully grinning facade." It bounces before our faces in a matter constantly swayed and buffeted by the wind, and although we may be frightened out of our wits we have no other recourse than to burst into life and accept it, to keep closing the lid and get the churning rhythm going. At the same time I felt like there were too many words in the poem. When it kept it short and direct, it was most effective, but make it too long and it loses its power. Even in free verse, you want to sustain a churning rhythm.
wolf1991
Winds of Change
Change has come again
It has drifted in like a well known lover.
Though I am no lover of change.
It floats over to me
It caresses my face with false reassurance.
And I know they're all lies.
The winds of changes are blowing
And they're taking me away, from all I know
And all I wish to hold dear.
In this typhoon of diversity
I am the lowly sailor madly clinging to his sloop.
Hoping only to ride out this storm.
That first stanza was perhaps one of the smoothest I've read in a while. I liked how you developed that image of the fickle, capricious nature of change. I thought, though, that the last stanza was a sudden switch in the subject matter that didn't really fit. It seemed like a bit of a mixed metaphor to me, and I think a more efficient ending would have made the poem a lot more cohesive in the images and actions that the wind portrays.
wajor59
Wind's Artistic Nature
Many a ship has been tossed about with sudden gales.
These angry tempests that appear, as if, from nowhere.
Causing fear in the bravest hearts.
Reducing them to mere machines,
Like automatons, devoid of emotion
They concentrate every effort to keeping the ship afloat.
When the tempest reaches shore it's as if some half-crazed artist
Has lost control.
Ripping the once beautiful tall dunes in jagged chunks and
Haphazardly flinging the sand to obscure destinations.
With violence the tempest causes the roads to disappear and
Inland waterways to be choked with the very sand that was
Stolen from the beach.
Centuries old trees, once majestic, gracefully draping the roadways.
With huge canopies of naturally air conditioned shade.
Are now reduced to gnarled and ugly stumps.
Perverse, grotesque in form were killed instantly by the salty sea.
Decades old homes built too close to the shoreline are obliterated.
Leaving behind, in the tempests wake,
A grim reminder of nature's uncompromising force.
"To the victor belong the spoils" by William L. Marcy,
Comes to mind.
As if the tempest has some hidden agenda?
To reclaim the sand for its own design and
Paint a different
Masterpiece.
Grammar and punctuation tics aside, I thought this poem was the best at portraying the power and the enormity of wind. Just as the wind is flamboyantly blowing about here and there, so the form of the poem imitates it. It feels like it would be a good performance poem, but in text I don't think it's quite as successful.
MRWalker82
Fujin's Charge
At the dawn of time, all was naught but a great cloud
As These separated the heavens and earth were born
Earth was a great muddy ocean and 'neath heaven it cowed
Between the two a sprout came up, devoid of thorn
Soon the sprout grew great and strong
And its flower gave birth to the First God
This god was wont to be alone for long
It looked upon the world, and simply gave a nod
The god caused Izanagi and his wife to appear
The first God made them to finish his creation
Upon the bridge of heaven, a rainbow, they cast a spear
It was thrust deep into the heart of the ocean
When Izanagi withdrew the spear, the water curdled
It fell as stones and gave birth to the islands of Nippon
Izanagi longed to see these islands with life enkindled
He took his wife and made their home upon the maiden
All this time the lands were bathed in opaque fog
That served as barrier 'twixt the Earth and Heavens
So Fujin was called upon to drive away the smog
He rushed to Earth in response to his holy beckons
He unsealed his bag and loosed the winds upon the world
They whipped and swirled and danced across the land
Driving forth the mist and filling the Gate 'tween the worlds
His task was done, the winds were loosed
Fujin sang and pranced as the zephyrs moved to his command
And finally Sun's sweet light kissed creation
I wanted to like this poem very much, but as it stands there's a lot of fleshing out to do. The myth was relayed in a very precise fashion, the words and phrases are there, but I felt that it didn't really manage to channel that epic feel. The meter and rhymes didn't have that broad assertiveness that they could have had. If you want a rhymed epic, do so; if you want a free-verse epic, do so; but whatever you do, go all out with it.
PureTrouble
Ground Zero
It's hard to say,
The LZ strays far.
Do I have minutes,
Or withering seconds?
The smoke plumes high,
And curls out at peak.
-- It's all fire though.
You can almost laugh,
"What's a sinister mushroom?"
But I know the wind
Will take me away.
It's surmountable force,
Will engrave my shadow to the street,
A silent scream.
-- Life will go on.
Finis meus veniat a vento flamma
I thought the fragmentation of the poem was an unusual touch that ultimately helped the poem, as if the last thoughts of the dead suddenly curled up into smoke and blew away. While the wind is capable of kindling the flames, it is also capable of extinguishing all the same. The third stanza might contain a grammatical error, though. I think you wanted to say "Its surmountable force/Will engrave my shadow to the street" rather than "It's [it is] surmountable force." The difference is a meaning-changing one, so you really need to make it clear to the reader.
Hypermnestra
Today the gentle autumn breeze
Carries with it a cursed disease
As golden leaves fall to the ground
An epidemic soon surrounds
Today the wind brings icy drafts
Silencing all the childrens' laughs
The winds awake a sleeping beast
Doctor visits will soon increase
Today the winds bring fall's descent
They spread winter through its ascent
Winter brings a deadly illness
Calling forth the darkest stillness
Coughing, sneezing, and lying in bed
Headaches and migraines wrack their heads
Not one child attends school today
This is what wind has brought their way
Today the winds are ill-aligned
To disease, humans have resigned
The children wearing layers of clothes
'Else they get the dread runny nose
"Do not go out!" the mothers warn
"There is to be a big snowstorm!"
I wish I'd done as I was told
Too late, I've caught the common cold
A charming poem in iambic tetrameter. There are a few oddities, but the style is uniform throughout, a mixture of unique gravity and lightheartedness. I did like the twist at the end, and I wondered why I didn't catch it before I read it.
So now that I've talked at length about each poem, it is time for the winner to be announced! I have to say in the end, it is Hypermnestra who really took off with the theme and developed it into a poem with consistent form, style, and content. So congratulations, and please contact a mod for your merit.
I think I'll be taking Ernie's advice about the length of the contest. I've always thought that a week was too short, but two was too long, so this next contest will be a week and a half, or 10 days long rather than 14. Therefore, the deadline will be November 10.
And the theme? For the young, the female, the otherwise hairless, or for people who just don't know, November is No-Shave November, Novembeard, Movember, or other clever facial-hair pun you'd like to make. In remembrance of this bearded/mustachioed/goateed month, the theme for this week and a half will be Hair.