Vote for the poem(s) you feel is the best (up to two). Remember to adhere to the "Honor Code" when voting.
While it is understood there is no absolute means to monitor the intent of a vote, we ask each PRC participant to exercise integrity when voting out of respect for the contest:
- Please give each poetry submission an equal opportunity in attaining your vote.
- Please read, or at least skim, all the entries before voting.
- Please do not vote for your friends just because they're your friends.
The Poetry Running Contest puts good faith in its participants to act in an honorable manner.
Contestants, remember, you are required required to vote (and you can't vote for yourself)!
Happy voting!
*Interested new participants should submit their poems here.
Arbitrary: Tacos, right? It could have been burritos but it definitely seemed like tacos. A soulful, heartfelt, and very sincere poem about a topic very dear to my heart.
Crusible: I'm not sure exactly what your poem said but I'm sure that I liked how it said it.
Voting for arbitraryarmor and queengothica13. I too enjoy good poetry about tacos. Also the hair in hoodie images made me happy.
If I had more votes Stifle and Zelmasterflash would get votes from me too.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I make words using things
like pen pencil computer
sometimes prolific
sometimes a neuter
Arbitrary: Tacos, right? It could have been burritos but it definitely seemed like tacos. A soulful, heartfelt, and very sincere poem about a topic very dear to my heart.
Crusible: I'm not sure exactly what your poem said but I'm sure that I liked how it said it.
Ah, another lover of Meixcan cuisine! It was about burritos, but tacos and burritos share so much in common that it could be taken either way
It was laden with awesome imagery. It also felt personal and introspective, which are some of the most important qualities in a poem to me.
Sam would have gotten the second vote but it didn't meet my standards of what a 'poem' is. It read more like a beautifully-crafted rant/prose. As a result, I didn't vote for a second poem just out of principle.
I dunno about Luck's. Last week's was cool, this one feels almost smarmy. I don't know why. It looks good, and is well constructed, but it feels like it's got a **** eating grin on its face.
I understand what you're saying. I was much more inspired to write last rounds entry when I thought of the idea for it then I was with this one.
As far as my vote; I'm giving it to Arbitraryarmor. They're were a lot of poems with heavy subject matter this week, and his entry felt refreshing and original. Subject matter was cool, and I enjoyed his use of language. Nice entry.
Blippy's entry: Liked how it was formatted, the pattern was interesting and well executed. Good job. Deserved an HM.
Queengothica: Nice use of imagery and language as well. Loved the use of the hoodie to complement the subject matter. Good stuff as well. This also deserves an HM.
well i don't know why my poem got no votes, but whatever.
i voted for blippy and ilvaldi. didn't really feel much of the poetry this week but those two were very enhanced by the visualness of them this goround.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
my mouth is full of winsome lies -
and eyes are full of death besides
but luckily the soul is wise -
it sees beyond my blindness and
forced failure makes a better guise,
so as i come again alive,
it feels like life's a decent plan
well i don't know why my poem got no votes, but whatever.
i voted for blippy and ilvaldi. didn't really feel much of the poetry this week but those two were very enhanced by the visualness of them this goround.
I was really torn. I liked that it was ambitious and vast, but I felt like I couldn't see the poem for the words. It was a lot and it was all saying the same thing, to a degree. On some level, I feel like the decision to say what amounts to very little in as many words as possible falls into the same trap you describe in the opening line, "i saw the best minds of my generation starved by irony." Just as it's possible to starve if you eat almost nothing but rabbit meat, no matter how much of it you eat, simply because the meat is so lean your body can derive no fat from it and your liver will fail, I kinda felt like the more I read your poem the less I felt your poem. It felt like an exercise in statement making, rather than an attempt to touch the heart.
In simpler terms: it was sprawling and, as near as I could tell, deliberately distanced from it's subject in a way that reminds me of Holden Caulfield trying to distance himself from trauma by saying "You," rather than "I," rather than the certain earnestness which is needed for even the bleakest, most ironic poetry.
Perhaps few of the other poets have heard or readHowl? Those are some pretty big shoes to jump into for such a complex dance, and I'm still not sure how I feel about "punk ballet in clown shoes".
It's damn difficult to homage a "god". It rarely works, IMO, and more often than not falls flat. At least, when I try to come off like ee cummings or Edgar Allen Poe, the result feels wonky to me.
I totally missed the homage, so don't I feel like a pleb
it felt like howl and my pieces were talking in a sense about similar things, so i just did it. brazenness is next to godliness? but it made at least one person think, which is something.
i'll keep experimenting, i don't care. i just wanted some sort of commentary. huzzah.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
my mouth is full of winsome lies -
and eyes are full of death besides
but luckily the soul is wise -
it sees beyond my blindness and
forced failure makes a better guise,
so as i come again alive,
it feels like life's a decent plan
I'm not a fan of Allen Ginsberg. I find his poetry too difficult to relate. There's a sense he's trying to invoke of a crazed, angry poet, but I find his poems, like all poems that try to deal with political and social issues, problematic because the perspective or pitch he's trying to put the reader at is that the reader, and him, are part of a collective "we."
There are different ways a poet can write a poem in terms of perspective. There are some poems that use imperatives such as:
"You see a man up on a hill"
Which tells the reader what the image is and what the reader (or maybe the narrator or a third party) is doing.
And there are poems that focus on a personal level, where the reader's presence is not necessarily acknowledged (my preference here). Oftentimes, "I" is used a lot here and "you" is often understood to neither be the narrator or reader.
And then there are poems like Ginsberg's that try to pull the reader, arms open, into its subject. I don't really like these poems because they carry the implicit incentive of forcing the individual to be part of a cause without necessarily a voluntary consent. They're too aggressive. They're too preachy. They force ideas into a person rather than let them grow on them. In some cases, this is necessary in communication, art, and expression, but it is these cases that I try to avoid writing about, unless needed for an assignment or something.
Ginsberg is still a good poet by all regard. I'm just not much of a fan of his work.
And in regards to long poems like "Howl," "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," or "America"--these poems took quite a while to perfect. They're very ambitious. One does not simply sit down and write one of these poems. These ideas, motivations, and content of these poems are typically the result of several, more simpler poems. It is something that several philosophers and poets have told me before: "start with what you know, start with something concrete, start simple."
If you begin with an abstraction, you and the reader will already be lost because what you're dealing with, poetry and the imagination, is much like an abstraction by itself. And in focusing on the less concrete, you lose sight of what really matters.
I'm laughing so hard at the fact that some of our most well thought out and scholarly discussion in the history of the PRC is going on in a round where the current vote Leader is a poem about Burritos.
I'm laughing so hard at the fact that some of our most well thought out and scholarly discussion in the history of the PRC is going on in a round where the current vote Leader is a poem about Burritos.
Here are the Poetry submissions for this week:
I Must Have Sinned In The Last Life by Stifle
Clogged Pipes by Guilan
Wonderland by Rodemy
What a Failure I've Become by Lucknorris
An Ode to Collective Perfection (Iambic) by Arbitrary Armor
Untitled by blippytheslug
Whimper by Preve
Just a Memory? by Queengothica13
Drowning by Ilvaldi
Plumb Out of Luck by Crusible
602 by Zelderex
Vote for the poem(s) you feel is the best (up to two). Remember to adhere to the "Honor Code" when voting.
While it is understood there is no absolute means to monitor the intent of a vote, we ask each PRC participant to exercise integrity when voting out of respect for the contest:
- Please give each poetry submission an equal opportunity in attaining your vote.
- Please read, or at least skim, all the entries before voting.
- Please do not vote for your friends just because they're your friends.
The Poetry Running Contest puts good faith in its participants to act in an honorable manner.
Contestants, remember, you are required required to vote (and you can't vote for yourself)!
Happy voting!
*Interested new participants should submit their poems here.
Join the Poetry Running Contest!
Arbitrary: Tacos, right? It could have been burritos but it definitely seemed like tacos. A soulful, heartfelt, and very sincere poem about a topic very dear to my heart.
Crusible: I'm not sure exactly what your poem said but I'm sure that I liked how it said it.
Join the Poetry Running Contest!
If I had more votes Stifle and Zelmasterflash would get votes from me too.
like pen pencil computer
sometimes prolific
sometimes a neuter
Ah, another lover of Meixcan cuisine! It was about burritos, but tacos and burritos share so much in common that it could be taken either way
"Golden shell," threw me off. Either way, a marvelous ode to mankind's most perfect creation
Join the Poetry Running Contest!
It was laden with awesome imagery. It also felt personal and introspective, which are some of the most important qualities in a poem to me.
Sam would have gotten the second vote but it didn't meet my standards of what a 'poem' is. It read more like a beautifully-crafted rant/prose. As a result, I didn't vote for a second poem just out of principle.
I understand what you're saying. I was much more inspired to write last rounds entry when I thought of the idea for it then I was with this one.
As far as my vote; I'm giving it to Arbitraryarmor. They're were a lot of poems with heavy subject matter this week, and his entry felt refreshing and original. Subject matter was cool, and I enjoyed his use of language. Nice entry.
Blippy's entry: Liked how it was formatted, the pattern was interesting and well executed. Good job. Deserved an HM.
Queengothica: Nice use of imagery and language as well. Loved the use of the hoodie to complement the subject matter. Good stuff as well. This also deserves an HM.
My Mafia Stats - My Helpdesk
G Omnath, Locus of Mana U Arcum Dagsson BUG The Mimeoplasm GW Gaddock Teeg X Karn, Silver Golem
i voted for blippy and ilvaldi. didn't really feel much of the poetry this week but those two were very enhanced by the visualness of them this goround.
and eyes are full of death besides
but luckily the soul is wise -
it sees beyond my blindness and
forced failure makes a better guise,
so as i come again alive,
it feels like life's a decent plan
I was really torn. I liked that it was ambitious and vast, but I felt like I couldn't see the poem for the words. It was a lot and it was all saying the same thing, to a degree. On some level, I feel like the decision to say what amounts to very little in as many words as possible falls into the same trap you describe in the opening line, "i saw the best minds of my generation starved by irony." Just as it's possible to starve if you eat almost nothing but rabbit meat, no matter how much of it you eat, simply because the meat is so lean your body can derive no fat from it and your liver will fail, I kinda felt like the more I read your poem the less I felt your poem. It felt like an exercise in statement making, rather than an attempt to touch the heart.
In simpler terms: it was sprawling and, as near as I could tell, deliberately distanced from it's subject in a way that reminds me of Holden Caulfield trying to distance himself from trauma by saying "You," rather than "I," rather than the certain earnestness which is needed for even the bleakest, most ironic poetry.
(sorry for being pretentious as **** on you guys)
Join the Poetry Running Contest!
I totally missed the homage, so don't I feel like a pleb
Join the Poetry Running Contest!
i'll keep experimenting, i don't care. i just wanted some sort of commentary. huzzah.
and eyes are full of death besides
but luckily the soul is wise -
it sees beyond my blindness and
forced failure makes a better guise,
so as i come again alive,
it feels like life's a decent plan
There are different ways a poet can write a poem in terms of perspective. There are some poems that use imperatives such as:
"You see a man up on a hill"
Which tells the reader what the image is and what the reader (or maybe the narrator or a third party) is doing.
And there are poems that focus on a personal level, where the reader's presence is not necessarily acknowledged (my preference here). Oftentimes, "I" is used a lot here and "you" is often understood to neither be the narrator or reader.
And then there are poems like Ginsberg's that try to pull the reader, arms open, into its subject. I don't really like these poems because they carry the implicit incentive of forcing the individual to be part of a cause without necessarily a voluntary consent. They're too aggressive. They're too preachy. They force ideas into a person rather than let them grow on them. In some cases, this is necessary in communication, art, and expression, but it is these cases that I try to avoid writing about, unless needed for an assignment or something.
Ginsberg is still a good poet by all regard. I'm just not much of a fan of his work.
And in regards to long poems like "Howl," "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," or "America"--these poems took quite a while to perfect. They're very ambitious. One does not simply sit down and write one of these poems. These ideas, motivations, and content of these poems are typically the result of several, more simpler poems. It is something that several philosophers and poets have told me before: "start with what you know, start with something concrete, start simple."
If you begin with an abstraction, you and the reader will already be lost because what you're dealing with, poetry and the imagination, is much like an abstraction by itself. And in focusing on the less concrete, you lose sight of what really matters.
Life is beautiful.
Join the Poetry Running Contest!
Join the Poetry Running Contest!