[Certain]

Pent uP: I have read this verse three times through and your ending another two, and I still am not sure what happened. I just don't get it. Why did the army stop? What does it mean they were running out of the resource they were there to pillage? Really, the entire story was a little muddled. Part of this is because you spent a lot of time developing the scene but not much developing the story itself. The early part was fine, but even then, I never felt completely grounded or at home in this verse. I never felt there. There's a value to have strong characters, which allow for readers to feel an attachment to what they're reading. You seemed hell-bent on avoiding characters, giving us one in the entire verse, whom we stuck with for three lines. The rhymes and schemes and diction were all fine, though there were a few missteps in every category. You probably would do well to consider natural stressors on syllables when rhyming, as rhymes like "graffiti and stones"/"creeks, cows and goats" are very hard to process because the unrhymed "cows" is such a prominently stressed syllable in any natural reading of that line. But mostly the content was my issue here. I thought you set up a really nice image that worked very, very well with the picture in your first stanza, but the second stanza began a bit redundant and then moved into an unclear climax that never provided any urgency. Had you used the first stanza as background and given us a character-driven rendition of the second half, perhaps through the eyes of one of the villagers or maybe even through our milk-drinking general, there may have been a deeper emotional attachment and a more clear view. In some ways, it felt like you were writing to the final couplet, which was a very cool concept. But the rest never resonated, at least not clearly.

Diode: This verse seemed to strain your writer's voice a little. You were using a deeper vocabulary than normal, and there was just something slightly uneven about it at times as the story went on. The first and second stanzas were pretty much exactly the type of writing I expect from you at your best. The flow was smooth because you used assonance and general meter to balance out the rhymes, and the story was very clear. But the third stanza sort of derailed you a bit, as though it was a bit rushed or you weren't as sure on how to develop Ali, our ruler and ultimately the story's pivotal figure. I don't think you ever quite dug into his essence enough to fully explain why he made the decision he made, to give the people a martyr. We also never got enough on the people themselves to understand fully how they would rise behind this martyr. You made a story about war into a story about two men, and in a way, I admire that. You stripped this complex situation down to tell a manageable story. I am guessing every voter so far has praised the pebble bit. Voters love those sorts of little tricks, which is not to say they are hackneyed or anything of the sort, but I didn't think the pebble linked that well into the second and third stanzas. I appreciate a good marker, though, and that was provided with it. I do wish the very last line had been stronger. The rhyme seemed forced, which is an occasional problem for you that is more easily overlooked when it occurs with deeper rhymes. In your style, any forced rhyme of any type jumps right off the screen and makes itself obvious. But I think from beginning to end you told an interesting sort of parable here, and I have to admit I've been digging parables a bit recently. What won you this battle in my mind is the clarity, though. When I finished your verse on the very first read, I felt completed and satisfied to some degree.

Vote: Diode