big baby: There were moments of stunning phrase-turning here, as there always is in your verses. Here are a few that particularly stood out:
Quote:
it isn't malaise. the road less travelled is travelled the same
mapped out distinction. we only talk when there's nothing to say
…
no gasps of air in-between kisses, just sighs of relief
stethoscope camaraderie. departure is now tearful at best
decode the morse of your heartbeat with an ear to your chest
…
she used to walk by the lake and avoid the watery tide
now when it rains I let you walk in puddles
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But far more important than those peaks were the woven references to anatomy and the systems that were strewn around the first half. When you got to the middle, the unusually overt “but it doesn’t matter anymore / you ruined my interpretation of love,” it felt like you lost interest in the theme and the topic and began to ramble a bit. Every read pulled the verse apart more, into two halves. Even with your beautiful found-poetry linguistics, the phrasing seemed a bit more off-kilter than normal in the second half. I really didn’t like “and there’s bourbon,” which seemed like the kind of out-of-nowhere hipster-y quasi-specific reference you would call dead man or PancakeBrah out for using.
With all of that said, the first half was spectacular. Beyond what I quoted, the allusions and sound patterns bounced off each other in the way they do with your very best verses. You juxtapose thoughts in a way that brings them all more meaning when you’re on your game, and the first half was top-flight writing, as good as anything else in this round. The tie-in to the topic was also very well done. Had the verse been more consistent, it would have been very difficult to beat.
Frank: I thought you nailed this story. You painted the character evocatively, set the scene, gave us a moment of happiness before a tragic finale. You did it all in your highly distinct style. There’s not a ton more to say about the execution. I read it three times, but I could have read it once because it was easy to follow and immediately rewarding.
What I particularly liked was the approach to the topic. In the past, I’ve often accused you of coming up with things you want to write about, then shoehorning them into a topic they don’t make sense with. That’s not the case here, thanks to the heart, the repetitive defense of Pokemón Go as good for getting inactive children some exercise they enjoy and especially the map. The map was the part that tied this whole piece together. You got too heavy-handed at the end to reinforce the topical note, but I didn’t mind that as it gave the story some purpose.
The negative side is that your writing was, as always, scattershot into a million directions. You force rhymes constantly, and that leaves multiple readings of your verses to be a bit tortured. When I’m looking for that deeper layer, those standout lines that someone like big baby will destroy lesser writers with, I rarely find them in your writing.
What saved you from that being a difference-maker here is the combination of your originality and the fact that big baby did not maintain focus and precision throughout his verse. From skimming the votes, there have not been many surprises as far as who voted for who, mostly because voters have strong stylistic preferences that tend to show. I like both of your styles a lot (even though I think both of you could use grammar lessons). Here, I think Frank executed his style better than big baby did.
Vote: Frank