[Split Eight]

this was a cool battle. making an effort to be brief to cast as many votes as i can, and then to return and expand on each vote after i do administrative work elsewhere.

GC- I enjoyed thoroughly your multistep journey. Poetry often entices us to write static, momentary verses that illustrate only a few impactful changes on the smallest of scales. Here you had a grand and sweeping narrative that seemed to shift in tone intelligently at each step. I think the on/ off adherence to rhyming was slightly jarring, it felt incosistent rather than loose or free. Sometimes your lines were too full of connecting words for my tastes.

"In the hopes, that there really is something materially divine;
The organizing principle behind all things is essenceless,"

^^^Just an example of what I mean- while prepositions like "in" and "behind" are common and unavoidable by rephrasing, groupings like "that there really is something" and "behind all things" sound like stand-ins for better words that you'd find in a rough draft.

I feel like proper word choice, reducing stanzas with brevity in mind, and thoughtful transitions eliminate the need for heavy-handed language like that.

It's one of the few places where it's noticeable in your writing, you're generally well-spoken. But I think one aspect where you could improve is to use your vocab and ability to generate consistent, cohesive, powerful couplets to say as much as possible in as little as necessary. I never get bored reading your material because you practically encompass this attitude without applying it in full, but I think 'trimming' forces us out of our comfort zone and helps us improve

I liked the web of wonderment connecting spirituality, science, and human life. We often try to emphasize one relationship at the exclusion of the others, almost like a challenge to our readers, but here you did the opposite and accepted them all.

The ending was haunting, and I'm still thinking about it in a good way, but I wish there was a stronger or more lucid resolution. I wish everything clicked into place for me like it did your narrator.

Ullr- this was cool. Very tightly wound descriptions. I've complained about the loftiness of your tone before, and I would here except I really don't mind since you're the only one on the site with this tendency. I think the rhyme schemes stood out most to me, and they were technically sound without being particularly aesthetically pleasing. It's probably a preference thing as opposed to a problem you need to address. Something about the rhythm feeling out of step with the content, like the ebb and flow of your story is noticeably paced differently than how you're timing your syllables. Feel like you write in 7/8 time.

I guess I'd like to see you cut a little loose.

I really, really like your final stanza. Probably my favorite excerpt from anything you've written.

Great battle. Funny, I want GC to edit harder and Ullr to edit less. Either way, GREAT connections to the topics by each, very commendable, and I enjoyed processing each verse and comparing them.


I think GodComplex gets my vote with a highly appealing tone despite a less consistent quality to his writing. More peaky.