Weekly Contest Winners 5/8/2013

Colm here, filling in for Chelsey this week. One judge couldn't vote this week so we had four judges with one clear winner and 3 poems left on 10pts each (site broke the tie). Thanks again to judges and keep up the good writing folks!

Winners:
Leftover Fragments by Meme (10 + 4)
Billabong by Melpomene (10)
Bleak by Antithesis (10)

HM's:
Trampoline by The Queen (10)
August by Noura (7)
White Feather, Night Breeze by Colm (7)
Newsprint Roses by Hannah Lizette (7)
Branding Iron by Melpomene (7)
Spy vs Spy by Larry Chamberlin (4)
Niagara by Poet on the Piano (4)
Extravagant Musings by AllHallows Eve (4)

Comments:

Leftover Fragments by Meme

'The theme content and delivery of this poem left me speechless bringing back many broken memories (10)'

'This poem is like a recapitulation of past alongside the self realization. A tribute to something still unknowable but yet never truly unknown . Here you could really see the vagueness of familiarity, the straggle to draw the lines to recognize something that gradually finding its peace and ease with its own unrecognizable nature. Struggling to find the definite lines the poet recognizes so many thing more important than them, the lines that sun did never draw, the direction that is lost, because of the broken compass. Things like:
"childlike smile
in between the seriousness
of your voice and the lingering
bitterness you feel within"
buy giving up on lines, she gets the glimpse of the fragments; she connect the past to future without drawing a line, like in the haiku canvases (4)'

Billabong by Melpomene

'One thing that poets do is play with words and there are many ways to play with words. In the first stanza, it is very obvious here that the word play revolves around alliterations and assonance while in the second stanza, around homophone.

What I really like about this poem is when the poet seemed to trick their readers by adding a surprise ending, which is of verbal irony. It was unexpected but a very clever twist.

Another thing I like about this poem is it is humorous and entertaining.

"watched as they chased
wombats in their sheep skin ugg boots and
laughed at sun bleached blondes boogie boardin'
with stubbies held tightly in their
way-too-tanned hands."

These are amazing lines and had me laughing out loud. (10)'

Bleak by Antithesis

'This poem is a really great write! The quality of the poem is high because it was written carefully. I like how the lines are synced together. I don't know if it's a form of poetry, but I haven't seen it before and I admire the writers courage to use such a strategy in writing. It is presented with great flow and there is harmony and rhythm between the lines of the poem, linking it as a whole.

The poem tells a story, I can guess it's between two characters, a child and her stepmother (or someone similar). Throughout the poem there is a sort of non-verbal dialog between the two, they fight against each other by their actions, the child being simply a child and making honest mistakes and the adult taking drastic actions violently against the child. I like the ending where the child gains strength to fight back. Although this poem is in the "sad" section of the website, and even with the strong imagery depicting a troubled child and a violent caregiver, it has a hopeful ending, showing that all children have the right to stand up for themselves. It is really a shame that issues like this still exist in the world and this poem not only brings people's attention to these issues, but also show the rights children have. (10)'

HM's

Trampoline by The Queen

'This reminds me of a poem I read long ago in this site, it was something about blue scout.
This piece line after line wave after wave takes you to the shore of immensity. You see, you recognize, that the river of lines are connected to the sea.
The trampoline affect of each stanza reminds you of a professional trampolinist who bounces with such ease and dexterity, by stretching her body of soul to beyond the statures of the words.
Here the surreal imagery, literally trips you to the images of Salvador Daly's paintings:
"Like a feisty child, clinging at the tip
of a long-limbed leaf of a skirt of their mother"
you see a "dew" hanging to its droplet of identity, before losing it to the vast of collective unidentifiableness .
Here each trampling jump, is a magnificent posing, to find a deferent posture of identity in which non are reliable, no matter how seemingly solid and definite. They all are to disappear at the point of return, to spring back again in another shape, another imitation of reality which is not real, actually is surreal which is more real, because goes beyond the surface of our senses or cerebrals. It shed light to something soulful but yet melancholy, because of its temporal natures. (10)'

August by Noura

'The emotional content of this piece is overwhelming. August, something so delightful with clear skies, something so pure like freedom that the lacking of it, but seeing it reflecting upon the skies, makes you to urge to bring it out of its hide (in the folds of some papers perhaps ) and screaming it out loud. Something that makes you sing when the music is not played, but already implied, silently, but not aloud!
In August poetry melts,
"light
toddles on bricks and seeps
into our souls"
Light, that teaches us fight against the force of our individual circumstances: the smuggle of cheap cigarettes and mundane concern which change the course of our dreams.
The great soul of a poet in every part of this poem looks upon the life , pain, sadness dreams, struggle of survival, the sorrows of separation, through the crack of the August, when sky is so pure that cannot be stained by any thing of this world.(7)'

White Feather, Night Breeze by Colm

'Frost once said "the ear is the best reader", but we also know that a poem will leave or die depending on how it is read. In this poem, both the placement of the words and the choice on how the poet uses punctuations, make this, on a practical level, easier to read and digest.

I also love how the poet cleverly ends each line of the poem by incorporating different punctuations, short pauses, full stops, as it helps the readers to take note and determine its accurate meaning and feeling. (7)'

Newsprint Roses by Hannah Lizette

'I don't know if it was intentional, but the imagery of this novel poem took me back a bit in a delightful Edgar Allan Poe way' (7)

Branding Iron by Melpomene

'This poem is amazing because it's different; it explains the feelings of a person using the setting of the story. As it starts it explains how the lover ran away by describing a foreign country as a stop "cane fields and
bananas" sounds like Africa, and so it continues throughout the poem. I think this is very creative.

I really liked this line:
"slept with her like her body was a
bone yard and only kissed her when
her frame was thinner and
faded like the memories you
like to leave behind."

which gives the notion that the person leaving does hold love, but is afraid to express it, or doesn't express it for some other reason making her feel cheap and used. I also like how that part is linked to this one:

"The next time you leave, her mouth
will taste like golden promise and ale."

This part shows how the person leaving will lose her love, because interest is lost when the person is late in showing love and affection. I could relate to this because many of us don't express love until too late. Here I find "golden promise" to mean a promise not kept, that fades as soon as the person is gone, a promise after much pain and waiting, where the person gives up on keeping her end because the other fails to keep his. This is why I can feel the drama and anguish in the poem. (7)'

Spy vs Spy by Larry Chamberlin

'As what the title suggests and from what I've understood, I think this poem is about the Clever and the Good, or more like a misfortune... of having a war with oneself.

"Two shadows lurk on moonlit deck", this is a very clever strategy to begin with, by referring to the shadows the title is effortlessly correlated with the opening line.
I love how the third stanza reads, like a devastatingly ironic reply to a dominant woman, inquiring him if he was basically ready to battle.

This is such a complicated poem, if I'm being honest as it holds several different meanings especially knowing that each line is a brief reference to some person, historical event, places or movement, but nevermind that, I still love the puns, symbols and allusions being used here. Very cleverly done! (4)'

Niagara by Poet on the Piano

'The imagery and flow held my attention , which is unusual (4)'

Extravgant Musings by AllHallows Eve

'Although short and simple this poem looks like a lot of thought has been put into it, and that each word was picked carefully, because it explains exactly what it intends to and it communicates the feelings it is supposed to. It is beautiful! This poem says everything about how daydreaming feels like, the child-like part of it, the guilt of drifting off and how we fear to get caught and the dreaminess of how a person looks like when daydreaming. It's hard to pull off all that in such a short piece.' (4)

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Judges' Comments Section
Suggested by one of our judges, this section will allow the judges to give general comments about the process and the unvoted poems.

"Message from a judge: This week judging was unbelievably hard; so many amazing poetry I read that I could give them all 10. Poems like: August, Man In The Bottle, Leftover Fragments, Ocean Mile, Spy vs Spy, Trampoline , and so many others. So I had no choice to dig hard and find something personal in order to choose. So congratulation, if I could I would have give them all 10 in a heart bit with all my heart."

Congrats all!

Thanks Colm & judges

Congrats winners and HM's! Thank you for the Hm and Colm for posting this!

Congrats everybody & thank you judge for the HM! Thanks to Colm as well

Congrats to everyone this week. Thanks for putting me up there!

Yes well done poets and Colm for posting this

Congratulations to the winners & other HMs.

Thanks to the judge for the HM and the well thought comment.

Thanks, Colm, for filling in for Chelsey.

The comment I just got on my poem is the best comment I've ever received. Thank you, judge.

Congrats to Mel, Meme and my Club fellow Jordan. Great poems this week!
Thank you judges and mods!

Well done everyone - and especially the judges because it seems like it is getting harder and harder to pick! The poems are all showing great talent, you should all be mega proud of yourselves :)

xx

Congrats Winners & HMs:)
Thanks to Colm & Judges for all their effort!

Great poems!!

Thanks everyone! a big thank you to the judges who picked my two pieces, I appreciate your kind words. Congratulations Jordan & Meme and all the HM's, some really great poetry.

As always thanks for the effort you go to Chels. Oh and Colm this week haha.

Please note the Judges' comments section added to the end of the original post