frank -
you have your own voice by this point. it shines through, and makes aliases of yours easy to spot. but thats neither here nor there. your voice always does very well to capture the photos of past times and make them now. you make them visceral and present and lush. you have a knack for scene building through rhyme. you throw caution to the wind as far as how conventional critics will react and just do you. you have never veered off this path for as long as i have been reading your work. i deeply commend you for that. i think your take on your picture was not altogether specialized in that it sort of fell into your niche, or your comfort zone, as some would say. this is where you operate at your peak - reminiscent urban tales of melancholy. it suits your personality. this verse spoke volumes on the dynamic between a self-destructive matriarch and her child. heroin heroine concept suited your purpose in fewer words. tragic and weirdly beautiful because often pain reveals the artist in people. i was not fond of the simpson allusion and i was never quite sure how many people were in this house. was it just the child and mother or were there others? men, uncles, cousins, etc. your description of the household was specifically tied to your storyline which worked effectively in itself. i am being greedy perhaps to ask for a richer understanding beyond the scope of your topic.
the writing was your usual finesse. like i said, a few allusions and references i did not jibe with. some were fantastic. RE:
Quote:
She was a waiter so she’d just wait until they gated up
Scrape some crumbs, come back... regurgitate for her young
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alluding to the christmas season near your conclusion was a clever device - it offered tangibility at a time when we can't fucking escape the holiday mantras. made it relatable to that end. present. well done.
CERPENT
oddly enough, you tackled matriarchy from a completely different angle. made for a nice contrast between verses. refreshing style change as well. i tend to shy away from matches that feature near identical contributions. anyway, your work - the would-be mother. heart wrenching. moreso because of the realism. the emotional distance of the would-be father is characteristic of all too many families that go through this. I've heard i, as a man will never know the connection with a child like a woman who has had one grow inside of her, shared her nourishment, nested in her body for warmth and survival. and maybe that's the case. stylistically, you are more succinct with your wording. you incorporate great little images like the house of cards and a mother clutching her fertility set. tone is really important in a work like this and you lead us through a dark gray carpeted home full of silence and heavy with heartache. nothing is like losing a child. the ball on the floor / bawl on the floor was probably my least favorite segment, reading back. i felt you could have played with the double entrendre more effectively. it felt maybe a tad lazy? applebees was another line i think you could have omitted completely. you had a series of standalone lines - "Was she ever even a mother?",
Quote:
She's biting her nails down with careless malaise,
leaning against the radiator, hair in her face.
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- that i really enjoyed. there were times i sort of double took your word arrangement though. latching, torrential beads.. i would have just taken "latching" out completely. sacrifice the rhyme scheme for more a more provoking image. "feebly muzzled" was sort of misplaced as well. maybe a couple others but those were most worthy of mention.
as somebody else said, this was a very tough decision and i am confident that you both knew it would be a close match coming into it and that voters are fickle and change their opinions with every new day. as of right now, for simply the more collectively enjoyable work IMO - i have to ride with
Frank this round.
good show guys. and good luck to both of you.
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