Britt's Contest [Finale!]

You three didn't think we'd get through a contest without a picture prompt, did you? :)

Below are two pictures - please choose one and write a poem. There are no restrictions, no requirements.

But there is a twist. That will be told to you all at a later date. :)

Pictures:

Http://www.designflavr.com/60549-Jarek-Kubicki-i1205/

http://www.designflavr.com/Metamorphosis-Laura-Ferreira-i901/

Again, please write a poem based on one of those pictures... and contestants.. watch your PM box for the twist :)

Please get your poems into me by Jan 10th, 3pm pacific time. Good luck!

Ahh.. so the spectators won't know what is the twist?

I'm guessing not until the end Lucero, but I am sad I didn't make it far enough because this is exciting :)

Well, Tara.

We just have to do a better job on the future contests so we can get to the challenging parts. XD

Yep, that's a good idea :)

Good luck to the 3 people left!

I will announce the twist after I've given it to each contestant :)

Contestants! Don't wait for my PM to get your twist. Just use a pic and send a poem in.

Ta Dum.... ta Dum.... ta Dum, ta Dum, ta Dum, TA DUM!

To the three finalists: GOOD LUCK!!!!

To everyone else, brush up on your form poems.

Poems are in (the first phase :D )

Here are the three final poems. The twist was, after each poem was received, they had to pick their fifth line, and use it word for word in a 2nd poem, using the other picture prompt. Those poems are due to me Saturday. Poems will be judged separately.

Glitter.

I've never seen something
quite as mesmerizing
as a man in love.

not even women,
with all their instincts,
charms and sensuality.

day after day,
I witnessed his
passion -

those ardent notes
that filled the wind,
with harmony,
honesty and an
a joy so pure.

he was in love..
he must have been,
for glitter escaped
his guitar-
whenever he had
her on his lap.

-------------------------------------------------

Bud, Bloom and Bury

There is nothing so perfect
as the bud before the bloom, nothing
so tremulous, so tart, so
much tasting of a quick deep
inhalation.

I kissed my true love
and in that moment, in
the first dewy breath
out again I gave
my skin over
to the sullying of
time and toil,
the soil so dark
and frothed
with leaves a hundred
years dead, with
petals a thousand nights
beyond their bloom.

Once unfurled
you crumble quietly,
freeing the richest perfume.
One where the bright scent of
dawning mingles with
the bittersweet echo of every
final, ochre-colored
thought.

Once alight, you melt slowly
like wax, red and weeping,
giving yourself over
to blight for the sake of
the sweetest
possible
luminescence.

------------------------------------------------------

Black Ballerina

She's spinning out of control
and it's all I can do not to hold her as she
flies into a thousand shards of wine-stained
glass and black spilled ink.

Her mood's darker than before the dawn,
and she's too fragile,
and she's too hard - like translucent glass -
while she beats against purple fires
storming at her back.

I wonder as my hands reach to her heart
if she will come back to earth this time,
or if I will have to go hunting in
shadowlands
to bring her home again.

I love the twist Britt! Very interesting!

So...

"with all their instincts,"

"inhalation."

and

"Her mood's darker than before the dawn,"

are the lines we should be seeing.

Cool.

Yeah, the person who has inhalation made it kind of easy on themselves.. but none of the entrant's knew of the twist beforehand. I didn't even know which line I'd pick until I asked Jason to pick a number.. haha.

Black Ballerina.
It's nice

Britt, random is fair, no need to explain yourself.

That's cute you got Jason involved.

Just to keep those involved updated, the judges have got me their scores from the first round. The poets are now working on round 2, it is due tomorrow. I have one poem in so far.

I will announce round 1 judging at the same time as round 2.

I think you should announce round 1 judging now ;) hehe.

Not all comments are in, just points :P

The suspense ..

Today's the day!

One poem left... Sending them a message now!

AI AI AI AI \0/

to da left \0\
to da right /0/

yay ! \0/

PHASE 2 POEMS:

Half felt Romance.

with all their instincts,
breast and femininity
hidden behind
thousands of human
cells..

Some woman
are still as
shallow as broken
sea shells..

I wonder,
what crosses her mind
when she looks at
those golden locks
dangling so perfectly
from the top of her head..

and,
as she caresses
those high cheekbones
with the brush,
I ponder if she
wished something
else would touch
her as softly-

(Doesn't she yearns
for something
other than science?)

have love give her
that cherry color,
that makes her look
just a little,
more beautiful

Sometimes,
when she's distracted
trying on her vanity
stained dresses,
getting ready
for lust filled nights..

my mind wants
to rob her from
that fairy tale-

Later than sooner,
all fades away..

and all that
beauty on the
pavements
of her body

like winter
in the face of the sun-

..will melt into nothing

that make up
is flaking,
one heartache
at the time
along with her youth
and her comely looks.

love yourself,
in more dimensional ways.

---------------------------------------

Catch and Release

Warm wood held tight
like a body to the chest, neck
smooth against neck, across
the heart as you'd cradle
any love.

Your hands murmur, stop.
They pause in a quiet
inhalation.
In the next untaken breath,
something shudders
in the deep thrumming of
strings, in the wavering vibration
that courses up the fingers,
in the trembling of the body
against yours as it readies to loose
its moans, its sonorous groan,
its heavy, billowing
voice fed by
aches and shadows.

None of this is real.

There is a beast here
that is not born in music.
It is not born at all, it's only
shed, hushed,
dissolved. It only
catches hold and
buries. It is only
a different kind of silence.

--------------------------------------

Title: His Wooden Girl

I do not know if when looking upon him
she sees the face of a man
or the face of a hawk, eyes more golden
than summer wheat and dandelions.

I sense she is the victim of a daydream; that
her mood's darker than before the dawn,
and she harbors a gentle candor of emotion
while deceit plays on his honey lips.

I do not know if while resting in the canopy of his arms,
gazing up at his winded cheeks like
tall drinks of cool whisky on a swollen day,
she falls drunk as a fool in spells of her own acoustic chords.

What I do know is, as I hide in the furrows of a couch,
overhearing their queer engagement,
it's no hardship to grasp the heat that flows between them,
reverberating in perfect harmony.

If you were to ask me what they look like, I would say,
in all my incoherent blindness - "He, the hawk,
and she, his wooden girl, who in his absence, dies,
and by his strumming, flies into secret pieces
of stardust."

AI ai to da FLOL! to the floor to da flol
\(-__-)z

That Wooden Girl is so damn perfect!

but I like the message behind the first poem , and the second one seems so eerily great.

Hoping to have the last bit of results in shortly :)

Awesome possum, can't wait to see them!

I iz almost falling asleep

Britt! You're making me crazy.

Apparently I need more things to look forward to... ; )

Besides the Larry/Hellon Contest, of course.

I'd love to say it's to build suspense... but it's not lol. My judge hasn't logged in in two days. I don't really know if I should

1. Get a replacement judge
or
2. Judge myself. I don't want to judge myself..

I have someone at work who reads a ton of poetry and said she would be willing to judge (she's not on this site), so thats an option, too.

RESULTS ARE HERE! The first phase is missing some comments but will be plugged in shortly :)

The winner of this phase is Bud, Bloom & Bury/Catch and Release with a total of 115 points!

Black Ballerina/His Wooden Girl placed 2nd in this round with 90 points, and...

Glitter/Half Felt Romance came in third (just barely!) with 85 points!!

Here are the comments:

Bud, Bloom and Bury -

15 - no comment yet

20 - Quite the lovely alliteration in your title, loved it. Loved the metaphor here used throughout the poem. Really loved how in depth you went with it. Was truly interesting to read. Liked how the poem begins speaking of the bud of a flower and then as if you kissed your true love, it blossomed into something beautiful. Really a gorgeous poem all around. It may seem like a cliche but you molded it into something creative and well written. Also, some really nice word choices here.

20 - The description of this poem is beautiful, you seduced the senses. The scenario of a first kiss is often written about but I liked the comparison to that of a flower, it was delicate and because of this comparison to a flower it formed a more in depth concept of first love, first sexual experience and so on. The way you included scent with such detail was great, often one will include a scent but not actually describe it. The technique I was most fond of was the way you used alliteration, subtle yes but it altered often and was evident enough to tease the tongue. You had some creative ideas, leaves a hundred years dead was the phrase I was most intrigued about. You worked extremely well with the picture and made it your own, I felt this image would be the more difficult of the two as the other led you somewhere and gave you the tools, this one was up to the writers' imagination. I would remove 'much' before 'tasting' in the fourth line of the poem, it reads better without it.

PHASE 2:

Catch and Release -

20 - I found this poem to bit a bit similar to 'His Wooden Girl' but a tad bit different. Loved how you weaved some sensuality in this, light yet enjoyable. Also saw personification in this piece, of your guitar and passion for music being like your love. It's hard to pick out a suggestion here as to how to improve this poem, I suppose I wouldn't rank it at the highest level of creativity but the execution of the idea was well done definitely. Loved the catch the release idea, brings even more beauty to the poem for me.

20 - I'm not entirely sure what to make of this piece. I didn't care much for the first half of the poem, it seemed to be quite one dimensional description (albeit quite good description) but nothing outstanding. I felt I was almost reading a description to accompany the picture in some gallery, which is in a way both a good and bad thing. But then a twist is thrown at the reader and they are catapulted into a deeper final stanza that I felt I didn't really get to the real meaning of, but in a way that made me blame myself more than the writer for this lack of understanding. I wondered if the first half of the poem was deliberately one dimensional to add weight to the 'none of this is real,' line and thereafter. It's as if the poet holds the aces here, and they know it and tease the reader a little. I would like to talk to the poet about this piece, but not before I try a few more times to gain sufficient meaning from it. Thought-provoking, and again, difficult to score.

20 - I enjoyed how you linked sound to emotion in this piece. Instead of simply writing what you saw in the image you focused on the sounds the guitar was making and how it portrayed what the person is feeling with their inner self. The sounds and words used were a great way to depict emotion, 'moans' 'groan' 'heavy' and 'billowing' were noise that gave the sound this emotion I speak of, that's why when I got to the last line of the second stanza I didn't think you should of used the word 'aches' because the reader had already formed that understanding and feeling from the lines above. The last stanza was my favourite as it had that strong impact by speaking of how one creates music as a release but also to hush what they're feeling/thinking. In the 10th line of the second stanza something seemed off here, I felt it should of read "too loose" or "too loosen," I wasn't sure if you were saying that it was becoming too loose or that it was preparing itself to become lose, perhaps I'm reading it wrong but I kept stumbling when I came across it. A nice incorporation of the line from you previous poem but you had it a little easier than the rest, lucky you!

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Black Ballerina -

15 - Right off the bat, the title really hits you as if it's going to be a sad poem. Normally ballerinas are beautiful, and black seems to dampen the mood a bit. Quite the chilling poem as I expected, definitely digs deep into your heart and makes you feel the writer's pain and how they feel as though they are helpless. You have some nice thoughts here, possibly could have used a stronger ending, otherwise the poem started out quite nicely.

15 - This poem related well to the image. You used your visual senses to create the poem, I liked the way you saw the female as 'hard' and 'translucent' while still including creative imagery of your own by depicting the purple as 'fire.' You set the mood through your words; creating a dark atmosphere that was overcome by tragedy. Personally I wasn't too keen on the repetition of 'and' throughout the poem especially in the second stanza where it begins line two and three, I felt it unnecessary as was the overuse of 'she' also in stanza two. Once you have introduced a character through he/she/them I don't feel it necessary to keep on using them as the audience has an understanding already but this is again personal opinion. What I was most fond of with this poem was the fact the author was telling it from a perspective of watching, it was a situation where one must accept they can't do anything but watch as the person they care about Is spiralling out of control.

20 - no comment yet

PHASE TWO:

His Wooden Girl

15 - I really loved the personification here of the guitar. That was really a clever idea and you really did an excellent job with it throughout the entire piece. I have to be picky though, I think there's a few parts of this poem that could flow a lot better if removed. A few parts threw everything off for me. 'I do not know', ' What I do know is', 'If you were to ask me what they look like, I would say' - these all seem completely unnecessary and overly wordy. Your poem would flow so much better without them and then rearranging the words you do have a bit or adding a word here and there. It just makes the poem drag on. I was quite impressed though, some of the lines were truly excellent - 'eyes more golden than summer wheat and dandelions' - such a beautiful line! Perhaps you could do without the dandelions part though? ;) Summer wheat sounds so creative and then you say dandelions and it makes it seem a bit redundant and leaning towards cliche. Aside from those few things, I would say this is a winner.

10 - This poem related best to the image with a what you see is what you get approach however you made it your own by introducing some of your own creative ideas. I was extremely fond of the quoted lines of the last stanza, the concept here was lovely, the way the guitar and her music dies without his hands to play it or without his soul to create it. I actually prefer the line from your first poem within this piece, here you incorporated it better with your ideas and the comparison of the eyes to summer wheat and dandelions formed some lovely imagery. The idea of comparing him to a hawk was different but to keep with the theme I personally would of said "I sense she is the prey of a daydream;" instead of victim as it keeps with the idea that he is using her (the guitar) for relief from what is bothering his mind and his heart. I took the guitar as an overall metaphor for a female, when you mentioned "she his wooden girl" I came to the idea that she was doing as he asked, not thinking for herself and being played over and over to make himself feel better.

15 - This again was good, but perhaps had one or two flaws in it from my opinion which I will identify. First, some of the wording is a little cliché, e.g. 'reverberating in perfect harmony.' It's not awfully bad or anything, I just think it's a little expected and doesn't offer a huge amount. Another thing, I wasn't really sure about the ending, when you quite consciously sum up the poem. It seems to make the rest of the poem a little irrelevant, and I'm not sure it works. The poem does integrate with the picture well and you succeeded in that regard. The comparison to a hawk is quite a good one I thought and it is an interesting opening. Overall a good effort and like all reads in the last round, it was an enjoyable one.

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Glitter -

10 - I liked the idea of glitter being like a man's love, it seems like it'd be the other way around since glitter sounds so girly, but here if you give us something to think about. I can imagine a man singing a song to his love as she sits on his lap, the words so soothing and dazzling with love. The expression of words in music is truly beautiful, and you've portrayed that here, they
speak so much emotion. Maybe could have been a more interesting poem, definitely has some potential though.

10 - This poem was perhaps the one that related most to the image. When I saw this picture I felt it was restricting, it gave you all the tools but where would the poet take it that it was more creative, more attention grabbing. What I was fond of here was the comparison between man being in love to woman, it wasn't even the comparison between man being in love and woman being in love it was just the comparison in general and a different one, unexpected, which is always good to see. Third stanza, first line of the poem 'day' should be 'Day' and Last stanza first line of the poem 'he' should be 'He.' The one thing I will say is I wasn't too keen on the title simply because it took away from the last stanza of the poem when you actually mentioned glitter escaping his guitar. I liked the vulnerable essence created, once a man finds a passion it's always something beautiful, even if he is covered in grease and pulling apart cars in the backyard, the joy that comes with it is priceless.

10 - no comments yet

PHASE TWO:

Half Felt Romance

10 - At first I thought this would be about a relationship and how only love was felt from one person and not the other, thus feelings not being mutual, but come to find out it was a bit different than that and had a wonderful message in it about loving who you truly are without makeup on, and the whole superficial look. Us women craft ourselves into this fairy tale of whom we are not a lot of the time. Almost as if we won't love ourselves completely. Interesting way of interpreting the picture you chose, definitely took it an entirely different way that I imagined. Really you did an awesome job expressing yourself here, very strong thoughts though I did stumble over a few lines because of minor grammar errors. A lovely job otherwise.

15 - This was an interesting concept to form from the image. It's thought provoking to see the world through your eyes and I found the tone to be soothing to the mind even with such a complex topic. I particularly liked the lines 'pavements of her body' it was a clever metaphor for someone is used and walked all over. I also enjoyed the imagery of winter melting in the sun, it led me to the idea that with age what we holds onto now will mean nothing if we doesn't learn to love herself for more than just vanity, love ourselves in general. You had some lovely imagery and metaphors used throughout, they were strong in getting the meaning across to the audience. In the first line of the first stanza "with" should be capitalized. First line of the third stanza I didn't feel the comma after 'wonder' was necessary as it created a pause that altered the flow and in the fifth stanza "Yearns" should be "Yearn." This poem had the strongest ideas and a creative approach to the picture, nice incorporation of the line from your previous poem too.

10 - I didn't like the title of this much but the poem itself is a good effort, and I must say I found the last round very difficult to score. I feel there will be a big gap in points when the poems are in my opinion quite even, but that's what happens in the final round when the finalists bring their A game! One or two things turned me off this poem a little, for example I think 'some woman' doesn't sound right and should be 'some women.' Also, 'doesn't she yearns' seems to be a typo. I am perhaps being overly critical of this poem, it is a decent piece but perhaps it went on a little long and didn't really grab my attention from start to finish. But I did like the imagery which was vivid and apart from the typos, it was accomplished structurally and in terms of word use.

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Murk and Murder/All Is Bright/Ghosts Are Empty Things/Bud, Bloom and Bury/Catch and Release -- 274 total points.

Kofi/December Comes With You/Proserpina/Glitter/Half Felt Romance -- 225 total points.

Winter Escape to Barryessa/An Old Woman's Christmas/Origin of the Fae; Too Fat to Fly/Black Ballerina/His Wooden Girl -- 209 total points..

AND THE WINNER IS.....

SIBYLLENE with 274 points!

Yaki came in second with 225 points, and Jane (silvershoes) came in third with 209 points!

CONGRATS ALL! This was a lot of fun (and organization) for me. Thanks to my judges: Sunshine (round 1), Temps and Colm. Melpomene then judged from round 2 on in place of Sunshine -- I originally intended on finding new judges each round to keep it interesting, but couldn't find any more replacements :(

Some of the other authors --

In Circles/On Departure - Nor (The Princess)

Fire Engine Red - Monster

Farm/Maesse/Aware - Nicko

Lonely December/Eve's New moon and the Soul's Dream/Drakania Lamia - Lu

Unconditional Stupidity/You Call It Christmas, We Call It Yule - Karla

Breezing Along with the Breeze/Rudolph The Orphan Reindeer/Titania - Queen

PanaLOL/Hallelujah - LP

Succumb/Potpourri/A Mystic Gift - Blissful

Two Pianos/Yuletide Gauntlet - Larry

Mysterious Discrepancy/The Festivity Arrivals - Everlasting

Untitled #1 - Silently Screaming

Untitled #2 - Nevi Versals

Shattered Heart - Holly Armer

Sharpened Tongue/Winter Cheer - Tara Kay

Talking Tall - Mike Nalley

**There were others in the first round that I can't remember, deleted the PM's and didn't write it down, so I do apologize!!

I DON'T KNOW WHAT I'M MORE EXCITED ABOUT SERIOUSLY..

THE FACT THAT THE RESULTS CAME IN..

THE FACT THAT,UHM WELL THAT'S JUST A FACT

OR THAT I WAS IN SYBS AND JANE'S BUTT...
WELL THAT'S PROBABLY WHAT I WAS MORE ESAITED ABOUT

you both know how I feel about you,
CONGRATZ BABYQURLS way to rock That sybs! and Jane too!

Congrats everyone. (britt, judges, participants and spectators ^_^)
Indeed those were amazing poems.

So more congrats to the winners.

I think everyone cranked out a lot of great poems! All three judges commented on how hard the rounds were to judge, especially as we got down to the end! Nice work guys :)

Awesome contest Britt!

A big congrats to Sibs for sweeping the contest as usual ;)

Congrats to Yaki & Jane for chasing after her like pacman! & well done to everyone else for the participation, I had a lot of fun reading all your poems.

Man,

Sybs took notice of my existence gais...

I IS OFFICIALLY A PNQ SUPER-ESTRELLA-STAR-METEOR-PLANET-SHINNING LIGHT-SUPERSTAR (AGAIN)...

like,I mean.. I was superstar before she knew I existed..but I mean c'mon.. its like official now.

Do you mean she commented on your poetry? I didn't know Sibs was such a celeb, I might have to corner her in the mod room for an autograph! haha

--
Also nice job to Nana, Colm and Temps for judging.

Do you know what it means to have sybs notice you?

GUrl, I've admired her for ages..

Its like going to an Adele concert..FRONT ROW \0/

CONGRATULATIONS SIBS! I can pick out her poems pretty easily and could've predicted the end of this contest. I'm just happy to have made it so far. Congratulations YAKI! You did awesome.

Thanks Britt. Thanks judges. This was fun.

WOW!
Sibs, you're more amazing every time.

Congrats to Yaki & Jane, great stuff, folks.

EDIT: The first round prompts have been posted in the GOOYCZ Contest