View Single Post
Old 01-08-2018, 01:39 AM   #6
Ender
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Dec 2017
Posts: 118
Battle Record: 5-12



Rep Power: 247411
Ender has a brilliant futureEnder has a brilliant futureEnder has a brilliant futureEnder has a brilliant futureEnder has a brilliant futureEnder has a brilliant futureEnder has a brilliant futureEnder has a brilliant futureEnder has a brilliant futureEnder has a brilliant futureEnder has a brilliant future
Default

Symetrik
This verse is quite short, which enabled you to keep a long 'A' rhyme scheme going throughout the whole first stanza. This rhyme scheme allowed a lot of inner rhymes that took advantage of the assonance you were employing. The second stanza was a step down in flow and rhyme but still pretty good. This time using a long 'O' rhyme scheme which gave the opportunity to use assonance in the same way as in the first stanza, but I didn't see as many inner rhymes employed in the lines. Those inner rhymes work well with your style, given how many pauses you employ within single lines, and I would advise using them as much as possible.

In terms of the content of your piece, I interpreted it as a woman who lives in a city that she perceives as being overly complex, over-developed and out of touch with reality. So she leaves the city for the desert. She is comforted by the simplicity and peace but ultimately she does not belong in the desert, nor does she have the skills to survive out there, but as she refuses to return to the city, she decides to lie down and die. I would have liked a lot more detail here on both the city she was leaving as well as either the desert or her death scene, or both. I feel like you paid a lot more attention to the flow and rhyme here than the story element, which is fine, it just puts more pressure on your rhyme, flow and wording to be very tight.

In all, I think your piece was quite solid. The rhyme, flow and wording in your first stanza were very strong, and the second stanza was alright. The content was a story fragment, but it was interesting and I would have liked to see it expanded or given more detail. Good stuff.

Innovator
Another short verse here, though a little longer than Symetrik's. In terms of rhyme you've stuck mainly with end rhymes, with very few inner rhymes employed. That is not to say none though, as my favourite line of your verse, purely in terms of the rhyme and rhythm of it, was the following.
The sky still swaying it waves, the winds singing hymns to perfection
This line uses assonance perfectly, first with swaying/waves and then with winds/singing/hymns, to just make this line sound beautiful when read aloud. Again, I would encourage this kinds of inner rhyming which improves flow and rhythm. It's not quite as necessary in your work as in Symetrik's however, as your syllable count per line is far more consistent, allowing a flow to develop even when just employing end rhymes. It's a nice read generally in terms of flow. Just a quick aside here, there were some words you chose in your piece that really hurt the rhyme and flow of the piece for me, though some of these might be a little nitpicky as I'm fairly sure they were just. The two main ones were 'perspiration' and 'physique', as they were the only two words that ended a line but did not really come close to rhyming with another word ending a line. Because all the rest of the line-enders rhyme with one another, it really interrupted the flow for me. Outside of that (which is admittedly a bit of a nitpick) the piece flowed well.

In terms of content, I'm not 100% sure of my interpretation here, but what I took from the piece is that a man (or woman) was walking through nature and was overwhelmed by the beauty (and possible presence of God) around him. This was not because the scene was any more beautiful than any other he had seen in his life, but rather that he was finally looking around and opening himself up to that beauty, since he claims to no longer be blind in the penultimate line. I was interested by the idea, and the brevity of the piece actually works with the concept. It's just a snapshot of a moment rather than a whole story. I would have liked a little more detail in the concluding lines though, as he moved from overwhelmed to free from blindness a little to quickly, in terms of the pacing of the piece.

In all, I thought the mechanics of your piece, in terms of rhyme and rhythm were solid enough. Your flow was supported by lines that were approximately the same number of syllables, which created a basic rhythm when read aloud. The concept behind your piece was interesting and appropriate for a shorter verse.

Comparison
This was an interesting battle, because in my eyes Symetrick had the better mechanics, with superior rhyming and flow, while Innovator had the better content. So my vote will have to come down to the margin between the mechanics versus the margin between the content. For me, the gap between Innovator's content and Symetrik's content was bigger than the gap between their respective mechanics, so I will closely edge this one to Innovator, though I could see it going either way.

Vote - Innovator
Ender is offline