[Zeb The Troll]

Yep, I'll be breaking the tie this evening and then setting up the next brackets so that the poets can have this weekend to get started.

EDIT:

I apologize for the brevity of my review. For what it's worth, I really enjoyed both poems.

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Haruki -

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I really liked where you were going with this, but I felt the poem was a little disconnected. For instance, I don't really understand what the first stanza is trying to say. The last two stanzas I thought were beautiful and reminded me somewhat of Shel Silverstein's The Giving Tree.

Techwarrior -

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The imagery moved me though the wording sometimes tripped up my reading of your poem. Sometimes it feels like there's a predictable cadence and then that cadence vanishes at the end of a stanza. The fourth stanza, I'm not really sure why it's there. It doesn't seem to contribute anything but it puts questions in my head that are left unaddressed by the remaining stanza. I feel like the final product might have been better if it had just been left out.

Verdict -

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It was close, I really liked both of them in their own ways, but I have to pick, so I choose Techwarrior. It felt a smidge more finished to me.

Congratulations to the winners of this round! I fully intend to have prompts and brackets up for the next round by tomorrow evening.

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In case you haven't been keeping a tally, the winners are Techwarrior, The Grimmace, Garwain, and Saint Ridley.