I hope this wins!!

I missed your poetry Nana...

I love this! I'll have to re-read a few more times before I can make sense of what it means to me, but I loved the flow and the wording!

[Judging comment from week of 5/20/13]:

Nana, I've missed your poetry too, and was very happy to come across this new piece! I have honestly, or can't remember, ever reading a poem about free verse, and all that it entails.

These lines were so interesting: "Poisoned with what's unsaid/between the lines, free like honestly miserable, free of faked laughter and of sham love." This really is what I'm feeling and have felt before and I'm sure many other poets can relate. We don't have to meet expectations with our free verse or make sure we "look" and "react" a certain way... we don't have to pretend. We can have any meaning and be direct in our words or ambiguous and let the reader decide. That's why I love free verse so much, you expressed it perfectly! I used to, when I was first on this site, write in forms and experiment with different ones... I liked it, but that was my past writing, I don't go back to that now or desire to write each stanza with four lines with a strict rhyme scheme.

You had awesome parallel structure here that kept the idea flowing with the "free of" and "unrestrained by....uninfluenced by". Free verse in a way is our most unbiased option available. I adore how you tie it to life, so many themes of life like commitment, faith, intelligence... none of that has to define us or set us as to what we write.

The ending struck me, as you bring in this "you" that makes me think about the person who has impacted your life and you can't seem to escape from. Like in the end, in every situation, you have been brought to him, and your thoughts can't run away or words physically free you. Loved the hidden meaning here, how you end the poem with this continuous breath"yet simply trapped through/the haunting hums I've once heard;/as they left my wisdom whirling/among your ropes/and tied my freedom/right to the thin lines of your cords.

Provoking piece!