Weekly Contest Results 6-6-16

I like to post the contest results early when I'm host and judges have turned everything in on time. Always afraid I'll forget if I don't post them as soon as they're ready!
Anyway, it's been an interesting week - lots of overlap and for the first time since I can remember a poem with 17 points will not make the front page. Craziness. Two poems with 18 points (by the same poet no less!) and one poem with 24 points. Without further ado, congratulations to the winners and honorable mentions, and thanks to the judges for their consistent work.

WINNERS:

Prickly Pear
by Melissa
10 + 10 + 4 = 24

"Just Brilliant!

This nature poem has taken on a life of it's own and I truly enjoyed this piece.

Melissa has such a creative and elegant way of expressing herself within poetry.
The metaphoric tone within nature allows the reader to soar in different angles. Starting from the title to the last line. Just lovely!" (10)

"Melissa has written something short and sweet this week that I enjoyed reading. It is one of those poems that reads and feels like a 'proper' poem. As I was reading it I instantly knew that this was in my top 3. Nature is there all around us and everywhere in our daily lives. Those who choose to stop and take a moment can produce stuff like this. Stanza 3 goes alliteration happy, which I applaud. Stanza 4 hints at a turn in the tone and a reality check all in one. Nice imagery, short sharp stanzas, nice write." (10)

"Melissa is one of my favorite poets, and this poem shows exactly why. I absolutely adore the idea of the cactus, what a beautiful metaphor for someone who is rough around the edges, sweet on the inside, and yet still knowing intellectually they are capable of pricking. I love the "needling" and other verbiage throughout. She just has a way of softly writing all these beautiful, relatable things that make me nod my head and smile along. Beautiful!" (4)

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We are only art installations
by Thomas
10 + 4 + 4 = 18

"I love that this poem is almost like a map, drawing out the specifics, telling you right where you need to go in your head, but then gives you a backward line about shredding bones like clothing, and making it the complete opposite of what you "think" it should be. I'm coming up with my own idea of the poem, like you've given your support, your everything, to one another, only for it to end up being for nothing, and not because the other didn't give it their all, but it just didn't work. You supported one another so quickly, fully, desperately, that you didn't have the capacity to support yourself anymore, and that brought down the weight on you. What a beautiful poem!" (10)

"The title of the poem is interesting, installation art picked up around the same time as modernism in literature did, and both were united by this need to express in the unconventional, and that's exactly what this poem does. The line "I find my ribcage beneath your couch" and other lines are testimony to that." (4)

"What I loved about this piece was I was reading and nodding along, yet had no clue what the hell was going on. I enjoyed the imaginative writing the author has shared with us. He sucks you into his poetry with his scene setting and characterization. This is a clever piece that deserves to be read at least 4 times to try and piece together the puzzle that is this poem. A poem that had me thinking." (4)

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A study in punctuation
by Thomas
7 + 7 + 4 = 18

"I want more of this poem simply because of how much I love it! I want to know where the story goes, like I'm on my tip toes looking for more to read. We can insert all of our own thoughts about what happened, and I love that, but my ideas don't seem as "magical" as the rest of the poem. Lesson learned, for sure." (7)

"I love how Thomas takes us on a journey with his writing, reading this I could feel the scene, I could hear the noise of the traffic and the hustle and bustle.

do you find it curious that the wind 
possesses no scent of its own,

^ I loved this part, after reading all poems in the contest section tonight this line popped into my mind. Very clever writing and great imagination. An easy 7 for me." (7)

"Very unique, and the title gave me fits until the tail end.......Flawless!" (4)

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

La Frileuse
by GB
10 + 7 = 17

"An excellent ekphrasis that captures the core of the painting, the life of Kathleen Newton was extremely tragic and Tissot, and you did an excellent job expressing that tragedy into art. There is something bittersweet about the line "Mourn the bereavement", it is a bit repetitive but it works, since it works as a preface to the concluding thought that Tissot should not forget about his great love." (10)

"This is beautiful.... A woman shivering in a cold room with such entangled emotion.... thats the vision I got within this excellently worded poem! I do love Samia's stylish and creative way she writes... just a wonderful poem full of wonderful visual display!" (7)

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Portrait of an Old Woman
by Cedricluk
7 + 4 = 11

"I'm being overly scrupulous here, but the capitalizations of every line is a smidge off-putting, I know it happens because of auto-correct (if only word-processors had a template for poetry and just stop auto-correcting and changing the format up, anyways I digress). The tongue-in cheek reference to goldilocks in the introductory stanza sets the theme of the poem up quite well; yearning. The old woman yearns to comfort others, yearns to live (both in the literal and metaphorical sense) until the yearning is no more." (7)

"Generally, in society- People don't stop to take the time of just how beautiful and elderly woman is.... the lines of a life well lived or perhaps the struggles.

This poem captivated me... a lovely portrait I could see and read!" (4)

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Poetic contradiction
by Ben Pickard

"I have been waiting for something like this from this writer for sometime now, I knew it was within him, and he finally delivered, this is definitely one of the best pieces he has ever assembled... I call him Ben 'Aflac' Pickard because like the insurance, he eventually pays off.

Why apply makeup to a monster?

Does it make it any less real because the lightning
strikes a barren desert?

^the simplest of questions provide the deepest of thoughts, this write was monstrous and filled with lightning......terrific piece." (10)

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My African Story 1
by Po Whet

"Even this authors pen name is a metaphor. This piece was very educational to say the least, it shows how we are groomed to fit in the world by those who expose us to such things, but we often times put ourselves in our own desired place, right or wrong, this was definitely right, and very intriguing. Great piece." (7)

I have to be honest, I couldn't see a front page without both of Thomas's pieces on it - they are sublime. Equally, I pegged Melissa to win with Prickly Pear. Truly wonderful poems, all three.
Congratulations to them and also to the other hms.

Thank you to the judges. All the best,

Ben

Congrats all and thank you judges and Jane! This week looked hard for sure, lots of great poems to choose from!!

Thanks Jane & judges for your work & I have to congratulations on the results. Thomas picks up where he left with creativity to be envied.

Congrats to all the winners, and those who picked up a HM. Thank you judges for all your hard work, and thank you Jane for hosting. :)

Congratulations everyone!!

Just beautiful!

Congratulations yall!

Congrats all

First off congrats to all and thanks to all those making this possible....

secondly, has anyone ever heard of a program called Turnitin?, what a valuable asset that would be to this site and any other poetry site.......I read so much familiar stuff, it's really hard looking it all up, Turnitin is a far better resource than anything I've ever seen......

Congratulations all. Thanks Jane and judges for making it possible.xx

I remember turnitin, used it extensively during middle-school to high school, and in a couple of my courses during university. It's pretty good in general, but it does have a tendency to screw up bad, I'm not sure if they corrected it or not, but if you quoted any text, it flags it, common words like "and the", "this leads to", etc, gets flagged, gets mentioned in the originality report, and the teacher is supposed to comb through it, but I've had a few lazy teachers that just used that score to determine if you were plagiarizing or not.

Google works pretty great, just searching for one verse wrapped in quotations will find you any text containing that verse.

^good point about google, although say an author wrote about eagles, and plagiarized different lines from 10 different poems about eagles, turnitin would pick that up better than google, or faster , instead of reading all ten poems or putting in every line individually.....seems far fetched doesn't it?, you'd be surprised......you're probably right though, nothing is easy....ha ha. and yeah teachers have definitely gotten lazy.

Not all teachers! 2 out of 3 of my current teachers are hard-asses. It greatly varies. I had an intense education growing up - no lazy teachers. If a teacher wasn't deemed excellent, they were replaced. My first experience with lazy teachers was... wait for it... at UNIVERSITY. However, community college is a whole different story. Some of the most inspired and inspiring teachers I've had in my life were at community college. It's the difference between people whose passion is to instill knowledge and stimulate thought (CC teachers) and whose passion is research, but they have to teach to support said research (University teachers). I'm generalizing, but I think plenty of teachers don't get enough credit. The world isn't all bad. Though it is pretty bad when students are selling their souls to pay tuition and earn a degree that's probably useless. Now I'm rambling.

Turnitin.com is the last site I remember using that scans for plagiarism, but you're right, teachers are meant to comb through afterward.

Back to the contest: Thomas, I was blown away by your poetry this week. Both poems that made the front page are so fresh! You're breathing life back into the dusty old bones of PnQ.

Thank you judges for your voting and commentary, and everyone for your kind words and for nominating my poems. Congratulations Melissa on your win, and also a congratulations to the others nominated. I am greatly honored to have both of my poems recognized, after a fairly lengthy absence from P&Q; it was quite unexpected.

Bob...I'm wondering why you have brought up the subject of Turnitin....any particular reason?

If Bob or anyone suspects plagiarism, they should bring such suspicions to the mods for review. Guess I should've posted that in the first place.

Congratulations winners, terrific job!

Thank you judges for the comments and votes on my poem, thank you Mark for nominating my poetry.

I'd like to wish peaceful and blissful Ramadan for all muslims on this community :)

Congrats to everyone!! Thank you so much judges & of course Jane :)

Congratulations Winners and HM's :)

Thank you judges for your time and thanks Jane for hosting!

Well yes Hellon, I like checking poems for validity when I like them. and turnitin is much easier than line by line. I' like many on this site has had their work stolen and posted on other poetry sites, I don't want to like someone's poem or give them a comment and then later find out the work was plagiarized, it's a bad feeling.