Weekly Contest Results - 12-23-13

Huge apologies to all of PnQ for my failure at hosting this week; I'm especially sorry to the judges, nominees, and winners. I'm honestly not sure who was supposed to win! I didn't get a chance to check out the nominations thread before the weekly turnover, and only 2 judges (including an awesome sub judge) turned in votes/comments... So I guess I'm not the only one who forgot, ha! Hope you're all having very happy holidays.

Without further ado, here are your winners as determined by our site:

Au Revoir, L'amour
by Euterpe

A Child's Trip to the Circus
by Everlasting

Waiting
by Chelsey

*Comments are as follows:

Waiting
by Chelsey
10 pts

"What I adore about Chelsey's work is how she manages to convey so much emotion from start to finish, the kind of emotion that makes the reader feel her desperate yearning and her longing via her written words; and how she subtly places imagery inside that longing, thus creating such moving visuals inside the readers mind.

"dying to tell him I love him, but questioning if it's too soon"

Love this. I think we all feel this at some point in our lives, wanting to share and state our emotions and feelings to the one we love the most yet holding back for fear of being rejected and/or scaring them away.

I was quite surprised by the last verse, to be honest, as the prior verses were so full of hope, love and adoration that I was kind of expecting a happy ending. So to suddenly realize that the writer is still only dreaming of this but has yet to experience it is kind of sad and painful.

It's been a long time since I saw Chels write a piece like this and I have to say I have dearly missed her work." (10)

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Speck
by Colm 
10 pts

"I just want to keep rereading this poem over and over and over. I'm having trouble identifying the best parts of the poem because it's so well written. I would suggest replacing the line "I wanted to water my eyes with salty perspiration" with saying simply, "I wanted to cry" but other than that, there isn't a single thing I would change in this poem. I love the idea that you're so entangled in this person that you need to empty your pockets of them. I love how this isn't so much a love poem or a sad poem, but a very true to life poem, capturing a feeling that we've all experienced but have trouble putting into words. You've done an excellent job here. The last line is effortlessly strong, it's haunting and it leaves me in awe every time I read it. Well done. :)" (10)

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A Child's Trip to the Circus
by Everlasting
10 pts

"I've been to a circus once in my life, it was the traveling Shrine circus and I remember the lights dimming while the animals and acrobats performed, then getting to see the animals afterwards. It was chaotic and very crowded. I love how you don't disappoint with the atmosphere. You constantly engage the reader from start to finish, making it personal and observing the different ranges of emotion you would have as a child. It is an experience that can't just be described, you have to visually see it and physically see the lights, animals, food, all remnants of a circus passing through. I feel your voice speak strongly through this especially with the different adjectives of saying it was ethical, celestial, extraterrestrial. I like the pattern of the words that end in "estial" or "ical" and how you managed to bring the fullness of a circus experience, not just one act or one performance. Also, I immensely enjoy your verb choices and how much you appeal to the senses, which is important to make a poem come alive. Wonderful job and congrats on winning the club challenge!" (10)

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Clay
by Poet on the Piano
7 pts

"I really appreciate the balance in this poem: the imagery and the story telling are beautifully matched. I'm amazed at how well the poet captured a single moment in so much detail without bogging down the poem unnecessarily. The description of the people not paying attention in the second stanza ("they kept chattering like mockingbirds trying to invoke music from nineteenth century choir lofts") is perfect. I love the history and the specifics that you included, and I love how you integrated your voice into the telling ("Defeated, you looked defeated"). Overall this is an excellent piece, it seems like you really understand your craft and your poetic voice. :)" (7)

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Ampersand
by Hannah Lizette
11 pts

"I feel silly for not knowing that the symbol I use all the time is called the "ampersand". Great creativity in creating a metaphor between life, this woman, and the ampersand. This poem intrigued me, especially with the two roles. I see this almost venerable woman who this man cannot paint, cannot say the right words that would describe her. He can't copy her look so to speak because she is such a unique person. I love the idea of life being the ampersand and dropping "reality into the laps of dreamers", like we can combine concepts and ideas in hopes that they work out. Then, this man knows in his heart it is she who is the ampersand that keeps them moving forward and full of life. Awesome ending where you tie in the meaning of the ampersand and of this relationship as a whole. It will continue on and there seems to be little to stop it. What a connection in this piece and what a way you have with telling something new and refreshing. I don't know this woman and man but you made me see this couple, these odd yet interesting characters. Good job!" (7)
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"I'm really enjoying the process of decoding this poem. So many unique metaphors! "He's a greenhouse congested with ghosts," is a perfect example. The poet is implying character and history with only a few words, while giving the reader some excellent imagery. I think it's pretty impressive for a poem to have one or two good phrases like this, but this poet's gone above and beyond and filled the whole poem from start to finish with a really unique edge. I'm impressed. My only caution: sometimes when you get heavy on the metaphors the meaning becomes a little too intangible, and the reader may spend more time frustrated in the decoding than in feeling and existing in the moment you've created. Still, this writer has some serious skillz, I'm psyched to read more!" (4)

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Crows.
by Poet on the Piano
7 pts

"'Emotions are not exclusive from
violent bursts of negative energy'

This. These are the single two lines that captivated me and made me absolutely adore this poem. I truly believe this is one of the best openings that I have ever come across, not just on P&Q but with every poem I have read, including professional authors.

The next line has me questioning-why are you better than last September? What happened in September? And I love that, as it adds a sense of mystery and curiosity.

"Don't you see the men?
Over in the corner? They're waiting
to bury me, bury you."

This is kind of creepy, and makes me think of horror movies, the fear of the unknown cuts into the reader here, adding another sense of fear: the fear for their safety for their own life-why are these men waiting to bury them? And I love the dark twist this poem suddenly takes here.

"Do I dare, do I even dare
croak out the syllables
of my name?"

I haven't listened to the song Mary-Anne posted at the bottom, so I'm not sure if this ending will have relevance or not, but I can't make my mind up here on whether this is a strong ending, sometimes it seems it is when I read it and then others I don't believe it is strong as it could be.

All in all however, I love this poem and it's refreshing and rare to see a dark poem from this author and I think she did a commendable job with it." (7)

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Au Revoir, L'amour
by Euterpe
8 pts

"This was a haunting and dark read in my opinion. The idea of this person so deeply affecting you, making your "soul unwind" gives me the chills. As if this person didn't just torment you emotionally but seemingly, took away your identity or your worth. Now, I also thought you could be mentioning this past love as someone who got too close, and now this love visits you in every waking thought and dream. So this person wasn't intentionally cruel, but left a huge impact on your heart whether good, bad, or bittersweet. You had some vivid imagery that stuck with me, especially with this line: "and scrawled my body across blank pages".

Very eerie piece but you have such a soft, vulnerable voice. That you have only found emptiness and nothing to fill you. I did see this as a gloomy poem as well and I love the lines of that rain "scorching my skin with remembrance." You know you have little hopes of moving on... Powerful ending with the page reference. That reminded me that he is the one who wrote you and your story, that you do not have an independent voice and you are left in the middle of his control through those memories." (4)
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"I don't recall reading works of this author before now, and I have to say this poem makes me want to immerse myself in her other writings and breathe in her creativity!
I thought this was wonderfully written, full of creativity and so unique.

"Often, I wonder how people can move on after love or after loss.
How do they fill the void?"

Words can not express how much these lines speak to me, and speak volumes. So often when we lose a loved one whether to circumstances or Death we feel we can't survive, that we can't move on and that we will suffocate in the sadness and pain, even though in reality we know we will eventually learn to deal with it, if not recover from it, because we have done so before and most likely will do so again, but it hurts too much to admit to this. These few lines hold so much power.

The only nit-pick I have about this poem is that I thought the last three lines were considerably weaker than the rest of the poem and felt it could have been ended on a much higher and more powerful note, maybe even switching these lines with the

"Absence,
is all that I have found."

Other than that, I really liked this." (4)

Congrats all. There were a lot of good poems this week.

Thanks for posting and no problem, it happens! Congrats to the winners and HM's... thank you judge for your detailed comment and hope everyone is enjoying the holidays, however you're celebrating :]

Congratulations to the winners and HM's :-D:-D

Congrats Winners & HMs:)

There is something seriously wrong with the voting and final outcome this week? From what this week's mod has posted here...Hannah Lizette had 11 points...a majority vote and yet...it didn't win? Chelsey's poem is not mentioned at all here and yet it's on the front page...there are other errors and, a very late posting so....??????

^^^
Without further ado, here are your winners as determined by our site:

Looks like the "site computer" picked the winners this week.

This begs another question for me, don't the judges actually cast votes on the poems like was done several years ago? Or do they send their votes to mods and the mods cast them? How does it work? In the past, the site only picked winners when judges didn't vote.

Aside from that, congratulations to the winners.

They cast votes on the poems like normal. I think its a crazy time of year and we should extend a little grace. I thought today was Saturday (so thrown off!)

Merry Christmas all!

Only one judge with the power to vote submitted votes & comments to the mod account. Another sub judge submitted their comments & votes to me, and I was supposed to place their votes for them, but I didn't.

A third judge voted, but didn't submit comments... I think they have now, and I will be posting them shortly.

As for the other 2 judges, I'm not sure! I'll go check the mod account.

EDIT: Three more comments added.

This calls for a Mulligan

Despite the mishaps, I still want to congratulate the winners and HM's for this week. Great poems... :)

Thanks judges! :)

Congrats to all!!

Congrats all!
Though the scores make no sense...

And specially thank you judge for that awesome comment.

Busy week

Well done to the winners whos poems caught the judges eyes enough to get votes.

Holy Crap...I just realized on won this though I saw the 'win' icon all week. I thought it was an old win people were commenting on.

hahahaha...much thanks to the judges comments and those of you who commented. I wondered why everyone kept commenting hahaha omg Im dumb.

Im a busy bee and very unobservant.

I too was slightly confused by the point systems things. But anyway thank you judges, I really appreciate the comments and congrats hms, Chelsey and Everlasting (:

(a week late, but better late than never... I think)