To summarize it is 'The Movie Labyrinth' v 'Daytime Soap Opera' v 'Sports Gonzo Journalism.' Firstly, enjoyed the characterization of the two psyche parts, interpreted it as a bit of psychoanalytic dream analysis in rhyming format. Some parts were obvious nods like the capitalization of Reaction, Projection etc, but other parts were more subtle. It was good that there was no definitive analysis at the end, but it was good to leave the dream as it was - just focusing on the manifest rather than the latent content. The language, especially the dialogue was nice, the way the two 'antagonist' parts of the mind talked was cool - "Incorrigible fraud", gave a kind of sense that the character having the dream had some problems with authority/academy. The childhood flashback part was good to give some insight into early development and you even threw in some Oedipal complex stuff too (the single mother part). Overall this was really interesting and it allowed for some thought, just didn't like the first two lines in bold, it made the main character seem like a psychopath in some mandatory analysis when perhaps it would have been more effective to leave that out and make the character seem like an everyman with these disturbing dreams. Then came a nice contrast from VV, italics was a good device to show the inner monologue, it was good how you had the 'fake' dialogue next to the 'real' internal dialogue. I like the setting you created without much description, you were able to explain that the characters demographics without explicitly stating it, again the dialogue was a strong reason for that. I don't understand the ending with the Los Angeles Times though, that was necessary and detracted rather than added to it. It didn't read like an article, so that ending didn't really fit. Still, overall you had a good focus and stuck to it. Frank had the best rhyming of the three, also there is the signature use of non-words to make a rhyme which was excellent - best example being the "Tweeeeeeeeeeee" part. Also, it was a good connection to the topic, "Don't let me down." that was what the Dean/coach was thinking, there was a good display of portraying that thought without stating it. You had good themes of faith in a star player, and there was that foreshadowing for Jordan becoming a great future player. It was really good, the lightest of the three in terms of underlying stuff, but that is good too, because not everything has to be some big comment on something all the time. You brought the reader into a time and a place, and you did it well. Overall, voting for Oats.
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