[Kalrany]

Great job everyone! Here are my judgments for round 3...

Old landscape –

Spoiler

TechWarrior : not sure if this is what you were aiming for, but I saw wonderful imagery of a war-torn forest, the pained vision of a lost/broken soldier; I could see the newly ravaged forest before the regrowth had time to immerge; the pain was clear and shock and grief well depicted; well developed cadence and good flow
SaintRidley : wonderful imagery of the wilderness lost to the encroachment of civilization, the angered grief was clear and the frustration well depicted; I could almost see the old man looking into a concrete jungle with distaste as he wishes for the forest of his youth – mental afterimage?; natural use of rhyming scheme, natural flow though rough cadence
Comment – overall both very interesting take on the same idea: both depicted a battered natural forest dead at the hand of mankind; TechWarrior’s depicted a more recent and sudden catastrophic loss, while SaintRiddley’s was older and more deliberate; both captured the emotions of the scene very well and it is a very hard call as they both reached very personal areas for me that I could sympathize with, so really the decision is less a matter of mechanics and more a matter of which one spoke to me on a deeper level…
Winner – TechWarrior

Fake seclusion –

Spoiler

Garwain : interesting use of the prompt – more of an enforced seclusion than fake, as the subject has voluntarily (for the most part?) removed himself from society to deal with crippling nightmares/flashbacks?; whatever the source, the subject cannot cope without aggressive intervention which is plaguing even the unaffected waking moments; the sense of pain and fear is evident, a looming terror when awake and overwhelming when asleep; the sense of melancholy well depicted; strong word flow, but probably could have been better emphasize if the cadence had shifted when moving between the scenes
TheGrimmace : the poem started off very strong and clear, but soon evolved into something that I am not sure I understand in terms of story – was the subject an astronaut wondering into insanity as he sailed alone through space? – but I did enjoy several lines in the second stanza and even the early part of the third, but it flipped by the end into the incoherentness of the fourth; interesting pacing and word flow
Comment – interesting that both the authors chose to look at the negative aspects of phsycological seclusion, though from differing angles; both had solid mechanics; while there was perhaps some minor stylistic effects that Garwain could have used to greater effect, I felt moved more clearly than by TheGrimmace; a close race but ultimately decided on the emotive impact the words conveyed
Winner – Garwain