Iron Poet XIV

[Alarra]

The other side

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I envy you,
Your clarity, direction.
Life mapped out in tangible footsteps
from point A to B then C,
a direct line.

I envy you,
Your resources, connections.
Knowing that if you fail (though you won’t)
Someone will be standing below,
poised to catch you.

I envy you,
A legacy to follow,
arms welcoming at every juncture
Be it college, internship,
your father’s firm.

I envy you,
Never feeling fear, panic
when considering your future path
and indecision doesn’t
paralyze you.


I envy you,
Your freedom, choices
to dance or run or play guitar.
No one to be other than
who you are.

Not living up to
society’s expectations.
I envy your
ability to make your own decisions,
live your own life.

To have people ask
“What do you want to do?”
And not having to worry
about what your parents will think.
I envy you.

You are your own person and,
I envy you,
that no one considers you their extension.
Able to take any path
or even do nothing at all.

[Vaynor]

Judges? Really? Come on guys.

[Viera Champion]

Oh darn... See, I use the other judges posts to let me know when I need to judge, and it seems they aren't posting before I do, so I cannot do that anymore. Hold on, I'll get right to it.

[Viera Champion]

Alarra vs. Asthix: Unclear

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Alarra:

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That was a beautiful poem. I love how you almost seemed to interrupt the poem and change the mood by changing to italics and breaking off the repetition. I also really enjoy the emotions and feelings you convey in the poem. It made me feel like I could truly connect to what the speaker was saying, as if I could see the tension in the air from the envy. No complaints here. Way to end it with a bang. A subtle, poetic, and metaphorical bang though it may be.

Asthix:

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You really connected that to the image very nicely, but to the word prompt, not so much. Also, the way you you spaced every lined of the poem and stretched it out really annoyed me. It was like every line was it's own stanza, which would be quite alright if the poem was shorter, but it is not. Some of the punctuation seems unnecessary and straining.
That is not to say, however, that I did not enjoy your poem. It told an interesting story that caught my attention. The strangeness it presented was entertaining in the beginning, but again, it may have worked better with a shorter poem.

Judgement:

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Alarra

[averagejoe]

Oh darn... See, I use the other judges posts to let me know when I need to judge, and it seems they aren't posting before I do, so I cannot do that anymore. Hold on, I'll get right to it.

Same here. Also: a week of midterms followed by a week of finals. Who plans this stuff?

Expect mine sunday-ish. Sorry, best I can do. >.>

[truemane]

Okay. Sorry about the delay. I tried to get on them both right away, but then both took me a long time, to articulate what I wanted to say and to actually write it out.

Here we are. I thank all the poets. This was a very good contest. Lots of really nice entries.

FINAL ROUND

Alarra
The Other Side

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This piece was a hard one. Your usual clarity and depth of emotion is present, but the service to which you put it is muddled. It lacks a clear through-line. It's like flow in search of a hook. Like an alfredo sauce missing one crucial ingredient. If I had to guess I would bet you finished this, stared at it, thought to yourself... it's not quite right.... but had to post it because it was time or because you couldn't fix it.

I'll try to articulate this a little more clearly.

The first, and most important thing, you're missing is a frame. I don't know if there's a word for this kind of poem, but the 'I [negative emotion] you this and that and that' is a stable enough trope that most of us have probably come across it before. And the thing you need, for a poem like this, is a clear, clear, clear sense of who the narrator is and who the target is. And therefore the difference between them that leads to the envy (or whatever).

Here, we have no idea who the narrator is. We just know (s)he envies this other person all these things. So I suppose we can infer that our narrator lacks these things, but you never say why, or how, or how they feel about it, or what the resolution is (even if the resolution is 'there is no resolution' you're obligated to tell us so). You just say envy-envy-envy, done. I was especially put off by the way you broke your own structure at the end, but not for any reason. Those last stanzas would have been a perfect place to tell us who the narrator is, what their relationship to the subject is, and where he or she goes from here. They envy, right. But then what? But as it is, you break the structure, which should really indicate a shift in the material (whatever you do, make a point, even if your point is there is no point), but isn't. So you set it up, get us used to it, then just change it without there being any reason. You'd have been better just continuing it, or not doing it at all. As it stands, it's a distraction.

So. The frame is the main thing. Frame and structure.

The second thing is a clear picture of the subject. What do I mean by this? Your narrator envies the subject a lot of things. But some of those things are positive traits and some are not so positive. Envying someone because they have a rich father is one thing, but envying them their ability to be their own person is a totally different thing. And the two are not at all related. If you write a poem about envying the rich their riches, then there's a range of conclusions you can draw from that (you're rich but I'm real, you're successful but I'm happy, you have a healthy stock portfolio I have a healthy son, it sucks being rich, it sucks being poor, everything sucks in its own way, everything's awesome in its own way). If you envy the confident their confidence, then the same range doesn't apply.

Basically, what I'm saying is, if you base a poem on a direct comparison of one person to another, then what you have is one person saying the other person is winning at Life. And so you can really only conclude a couple of things: that they're not winning after all even if it looks like they are (in which case you conclude you don't envy them after all), or that they are winning (in which case you either chose to be more like them, or choose to continue losing).

What you have is kinda half of each, and neither. Someone walking through life on daddy's dime looks like they're winning, someone walking through life on talent and drive and determination actually is winning. And in either case these things only have meaning when compared against the narrator's definition of what constitutes 'winning.' The only way the back-and-forth can really work is if there's one particular person you (the narrator) has in mind. And if that's the case, then you need to put that in the poem somehow, so we can see it. Some idea of their relationship. A look at who these people are and how they intersect.

I haven't talked much about the actual language, because as I said, the individual verses are fine. Some of them are very striking. But they don't add up to anything more than they are. And, in fact, the flow reduces their power by not forming a clear narrative from which we can draw clear conclusions (or even a clear narrative that refuses to let us draw clear conclusions, which would have been fine too).

This sounds like a total rampage. But only because what I'm trying to communicate is subtle and hard to describe.

A quick re-write and this could be a very good piece. All the building blocks are there. They just need to be assembled.

Asthix
Bluff Country

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Is there a reason you double-spaced this? I found it very distracting. It's not a big, big deal, but it's important to remember that poetry, unlike prose, takes meaning from its physical layout as well as the content. So that kind of thing is important to remember. I say it frequently: stick to the normal rules of English unless you're departing from them for a reason.

Anyway.

This is a good piece. It reads a little rough and uneven in places, but overall it's a strong poem. I like the fragile dream state you evoke. Your language is simple enough most of the time for the surreal turns of phrase to feel true, even if they're technically nonsense. But you don't drift far enough out into obscurity to lose sight of the concrete experience.

The one thing that I thought did not work was the single-line stanzas. Those are a fairly modern addition to poetry and it's my opinion they should be used with care. It comes down to layout again. Why are these phrases set apart in such a self-conscious manner? Are they used to mark divisions in narrative movement? As highlights of vitally important points? Shifts in tone? Theme? They don't seem to be. They seem to be just any other line and separating them like that is a distraction.

Some particularly nice turns of phrase:

And the clouds spilled down in the valleys.
Unpaved forest walked to the edge of the gravel,

and...

And it dawns slow upon the late afternoon that
There is no topping that

and...

In such a state,
Returning is always new.

All very nice. They illustrate the strength of the piece, which is the non-linear language that takes the reminiscence out of the mere story and places it in a sort of surreal memory-land where striking images loom over the consciousness and distort with time. Kind of how, every time I see my father, I surprised at how short he is. In my memory he towers over me. In life he's only an inch so taller than I am.

I thought you could have walked a little further in that direction, all in all. some of the phrases aren't as striking, or as illuminating. But the real lack in this piece is a sense of narrative, a spine, if you will, to hang the surreal memories on. I know we've got some dudes taking a joyride out in the country. But, for example, "They were all lunatics until your turn behind the wheel" is an intriguing line as it implies something outside of the base experience. It implies a group dynamic, a sense of movement from one moment to the next. It implies a story. But then you drop it, whatever it was, and move on.

I like the ending (except for the word 'Nevermore' which is too precious to fit into the informality of the rest of the piece), but I would have liked a stronger through-line. Why were they on the trip? Why didn't they ever go again? What changed in the narrator between the start and the end of the day? If nothing changed, then something around him must have changed. Otherwise, why is he recalling this moment?

It's a good piece. It just feels a half-step away from being what it wants to be.

Verdict

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Jebus this all sounds negative. But in both cases I hit what was lacking so hard because both pieces are almost there. Anyway.

I had almost the same range of reservations about both pieces. But I thought Asthix's piece had the clearer vision and the more striking language.

[Alarra]

@Truemane

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I was especially put off by the way you broke your own structure at the end, but not for any reason. Those last stanzas would have been a perfect place to tell us who the narrator is, what their relationship to the subject is, and where he or she goes from here. They envy, right. But then what? But as it is, you break the structure, which should really indicate a shift in the material (whatever you do, make a point, even if your point is there is no point), but isn't. So you set it up, get us used to it, then just change it without there being any reason. You'd have been better just continuing it, or not doing it at all. As it stands, it's a distraction.

Actually, the break in structure was intentional and had a point and a good reason behind it. I'm sad to see that this piece did not come off as clearly as I wanted it to. It was apparently not clear to anyone other than me and Zeb that there were two different narrators and that when I switched to italics I was switching speakers. I'm not sure how I should have done that differently. The idea behind the differences in structure was that the speaker that wants structure and a path has a very rigid structure to the verse, and the speaker that's wanting freedom and choices moves further away from the structure in each successive verse, trying to rebel against his expectation as it were.

What you have is kinda half of each, and neither. Someone walking through life on daddy's dime looks like they're winning, someone walking through life on talent and drive and determination actually is winning. And in either case these things only have meaning when compared against the narrator's definition of what constitutes 'winning.' The only way the back-and-forth can really work is if there's one particular person you (the narrator) has in mind. And if that's the case, then you need to put that in the poem somehow, so we can see it. Some idea of their relationship. A look at who these people are and how they intersect.

The intention here was to be that they were both comparing their lives with the speaker of the other half of the poem, and you're supposed to be left with the conclusion, as it were, that neither is winning and that if they changed position they would still be envious of one another, the whole, 'the grass is always greener on the other side', thing. Of course, if you didn't catch that there were two speakers in the poem, none of the points I was trying to make would come across, so clearly that's where things broke down here. Sorry I wasn't able to make it as clear as I'd hoped.

[truemane]

@Alarra

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Holy crap I totally missed that. I didn't even notice the italics, which may have tipped me off (or maybe not). So, you can go ahead and completely disregard everything I said, as it was all wrong. You totally played it exactly right. Knowing that now, excellent work.

*shakes head*

I wouldn't normally say this (as all I can do is call it like I see it) but I'm sorry, Alarra. I think I probably should have caught that.

[leakingpen]

@alarra

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I caught it, but i think it might have been more obvious is the first line in italics was, No, I envy YOU,

perhaps the emphasis would have brought it out? but, I liked it!

[Weezer]

@Alarra

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Probably doesn't mean much, me not being a judge or anything, but I saw the switch. I really liked it, the idea of having two distinct and oppositional narrators in a single poem is a very interesting idea. I was confused a bit on my first read-through but it became clear when I looked at it a second time.

[averagejoe]

My 100% on time observations and judgment.

Asthix:

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Interesting. Kind of sad. A fond look back at events long past. I like the kind of lazy, halting style you used, and it was very easy to get into the rhythm of the poem and get drawn in. The lines separate from the verses also worked pretty well. I usually don’t like that sort of thing, but in this case it really worked for the poem, made it more reminiscent of a memory than simply telling the story would have, and the one at the end, where it ended up being the start of the last verse, helped bookend the poem rather nicely. Similarly, the spacing worked in the poem’s favor as well, made it somehow more dreamlike. I really think this would be a different poem if you spaced it more conventionally.

I don’t know what else to say. You had some nice bits where you played around with sounds. (Long ago now/back roads//came easy/down in the valleys, comes to mind). Overall I thought it was great, but it’s difficult to find anything to say. It seems to lend itself to abstract contemplation rather than specific thoughts. Even the things I’ve said seem not to say precisely what I mean. So, yeah, strong entry.

Alarra:

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I tend to be inclined to dislike such repetition in poems, but I think you played with it pretty nicely. I like how the form of each half seemed to mirror the person that was being envied rather than the speaker, with the latter portion being more chaotic and in the more nonstandard font. The poem used a gimmick, something I’m also not very fond of, but it was pretty obvious and intuitive what you were doing, and so the gimmick itself was pretty unobtrusive. Honestly, this is probably a shining example of how to do a gimmick in poetry.

Content-wise, I dunno, it kind of falls apart for me. It lacks the personal intimacy of the other poems that you’ve done this contest, and that always seems like your strong suit. The idea your poem expresses is very grokable from the poem itself, but it’s also one of those generic sorts of sentiments. “The grass is always greener,” and what have you. There’s no real point of view there, no real personality to it. What it says is said in such a distant way that there’s no real impact.

Verdict:

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Asthix.

[Vaynor]

Well that concludes this round, and this contest.

Congratulations to Asthix, winner of Iron Poet XIV!

The new round will be up momentarily.

[Asthix]

I, I did it!

After Alarra's poem got so much attention, I thought that was it. This win is credited to listening to the critiques of the judges and using them to push my boundaries more than before. Thank you for helping me grow as a writer!

Just for fun, I'll put up my alternate poem that I wrote for the final round. It's very... negative.

Picture
Word: Unclear
Title: The Stoplight Director

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Sunlight does not exist.

The arrow points back the way you came.

Thank you.

What are you still doing here?

Do not look at the lights.

Of course you're scared, you're unprepared

Go away.

There is no cliff, civic order

Forbids it. Obviously.

Well there's a hill, go towards it till

You leave.

Do not remove the traffic signal

Or you will be fined.

(Yes I know how easy they are to hook up)

I would

Not advise taking the right road.

So much noise, but no

Water sloshing. Not enough to return here,

You see.

From a distance you fooled me

But no tools in a pack

Means You're not from around here, hear?

That no

U-Turn sign means nothing to

You. Our secrets stay

Unless one comes to work. The rest, well...

they drift.

So back the way you came, hmm?

--VVV-- Thanks Alarra! Wahoo!

[Alarra]

Congrats Asthix