[Clutbuck]

Ender: What a fantastic verse! I’ll give you an indepth post of feedback as I feel this deserves it way more than it’s received so far. Straight from the opening line I loved this idea of “fear is a chainsaw blade,” it created a nice visual accompaniment to the message you were relaying but it also an example on why word choice is an important factor. As an opening line, you want to grab your audiences attention, and you certainly did that here. It made me want to listen and read on. The idea of being afraid of being afraid was also a unique one to this topic, which I also enjoyed, and the last couplet starts to build up the characterisation of the lead for the reader, setting your stall out early on:

Originally Posted by Ender

Living in Fear
It’s a monotonous buzz, fear is a chainsaw blade
It never goes away, I’m even afraid of being afraid
Trying to fade into the background wherever I go
So I don’t have to fight, so it never comes to blows

The flow/implied rhythm/cadence you keep is very well done - and understated - which is probably why it’s gone overlooked by the other voters so far but I fully appreciate the difficulty in what you’ve done here. It’s subtle. The mark of an experienced writer, for sure, I also enjoyed the switch up of the rhymes used in the fourth line in particular - again, rhyme scheme and technical proficiency seems to be overlooked by some people in the league that may not understand what is being done right in front of them but I’ve a penchant for high-and mechanics and rhyme scheme so I’m absolutely with you as far as that’s concerned:

I suppose it’s why I try to never meet the eye
Of girls and guys in the street passing by
Deny eye contact and show no facial expression
Avoid a painful session of unstable aggression

I liked how you chose to speak to your audience directly in that opening line, breaking the fourth wall almost, and creating a direct link between you and the reader. It was subtly done, but definitely deserves pointing out as I don’t want you to think anything was missed (at least by me), your efforts here are appreciated. Again, the internal rhyme as you transitioned into the third line with the “down in the end/ground and defend” rhyme made it work so much more fluently and that’s no fluke - that’s as a result of your penmanship. A very well crafted line. I think at this point as well I feel I must mention the consistency in how the shorter lines employed have sustained this incredible cadence at your pieces heart that’s driven things forward at pace - no dry spots - it’s just a well oiled machine of mechanics powering it forward, kudos to you sir:

But I question what this is really about my friend
Why I want to shout but I tend to back down in the end
Never hold my ground and defend, what is this fear?
Is it mere harsh words that I can’t bear to hear?
Or do I fear violence leading to a downturn in my health?
Or in a confrontation, what I might learn about myself?

This is continued as we enter the build up to your closing stanza, where the dialogue is kept natural sounding and crisp and you don’t fall into the trap of trying to rhyme out entire sections of conversation a lot less experienced writers do. The imagery and characterisation is on point also, and I liked the “splashes about/crashing clout” multi scheme deployed before your closing statement that rounded things out to the topic at hand nicely:

I dwell on on this as I’m walking the streets in a slump
Watching my feet, I think it’s clear that….. BUMP!
“Watch where you’re going, you stupid queer cunt!”
Sheer blunt rage in the voice, I could hear the affront
He had a mohawk, black leather jacket and boots
A nose-ringed brute who looked used to disputes
I could feel my heart pump, maybe this was the time
Don’t be a coward, standing up for yourself isn’t a crime
“Sorry about that,” mumbled quietly. Pathetic.
Should be ready to rumble, not shyly apologetic
Yet still apoplectic, a boot lashes out
Blood splashes about from the crashing clout
No doubt unconscious, maybe dead
Tried to get back up, got a boot to the head

I had always lived in fear, what would happen if I confront?
My wrath escaped and I killed that mohawked queer cunt

Very nice work, Ender. I’m impressed.


Bodey: This sort of felt like a continuation piece from where you left off last week, to me, which does feel unimaginative and uncreative and almost cheap as the characters have been established previously. You also had gone over the specified line limit so that’s a point deducted also in my book, it’s poor sportsmanship. Anyway, on to the breakdown:

I noticed almost instantly you have a poly-syllable rhyme which falls short compared with the schemes and technical efficiency that Ender displayed here. The lines are longer, meaning the flow suffers considerably in comparison, and with him adopting such a short syllable count to his lines it makes yours feel even more elongated which I’m not a fan of. Call for us/Florida doesn’t rhyme at all on my accent and comes off forced also which I had an issue with as I’m a perfectionist:

It was the summer of ’93, yet we still sported JNCO jeans
With one pant-leg to the knee, please advise the bike-chain grease
Streetlights flickered on, gesturing our parents to call for us
Grew up on the same suburban block in Hollywood, Florida

The next section offers a lot of nostalgic references but there’s no real heart to it to drive it forward, it isn’t progressing the storyline or really giving us any insight into the characters and who they are as people - their personalities, thoughts, fears etc... it just kind of “is”, you know? It’s missing something to make a connection. Win/head also doesn’t rhyme in my accent at all, sorry:

Such popular kids, dirtying the jokes on our popsicle sticks
And that GI Joe with the voice box was awesome as shit
Parachutes were ready, bottle rockets were lit
Stood over the channel and shot ‘em off of a bridge
One day we were playin pogs, and I was about to win
And then you started goin off, chuckin the slammer at my head

The namedrop of this “Lisa” character without any further information felt a little lazy, to me, as there was a great opportunity missed there to give the reader some visual imagery and paint a mental image as to who she was - but we get nothing. It’s simple glossed over. A glaring plot device. Chekhov’s gun fired with no foreshadowing or misdirection. Again, there are ways this can be employed effectively, but that wasn’t done well here at all. It’s another missed opportunity to further develop the idea:

You never showed me you were sorry, it’s outrageous that I stayed
I should’ve known that this was just the budding stages of your rage
Now we’re 17-years old, and you still tell me that we’re boys
But anytime I’d get a girl, you’d get jealous and annoyed
And I never spoke up, I guess because I was afraid
So I tried to spend my time with Lisa, she was always a good lay

The opening couplet here didn’t even rhyme, which further solidifies my concern this was wrote rather erratically last minute. The dialogue section was an improvement, I enjoyed it, despite the polysyllabic rhyming etc in comparison with your opponents piece.

Until the day that you walked in on us and threw a fist across my face
I opened my eyes to the sound of her sobbing, it's obvious she had lost it
She told me how you forced yourself inside her while I laid nearby unconscious
That’s it, I told myself, this motherfucker is gonna die
I came home that night, and I begged my parents one more time:
“Can we please move?”
My mother asked to pass the rice
My father would rather toss me money than to ask about my eye
“Kids get into scuffles all the time, is it so wrong to assume that we thought everything was fine?”[/quote]

The Bobby Kent name drop with little else to further the character development beyond that again feels more of a hackneyed plot device being utilised than anything more. It’s lazy on your part. Show us who the character is, don’t just tell us, you know? The “asshole/have, so” rhyme is also an example of you forcing the rhyme because the comma would indicate a pause between the two words - and to make it rhyme as you intended, there would be no pause. Please take more care, time and effort when constructing these things:

Bobby Kent was the high school athlete, every teacher’s wet dream
No adult in this town thought to ask me if he’s really all what he seems
He’s a modern-day Eddie Haskel, a narcissistic asshole
And I’ll be damned if he gets the future that his daddy couldn’t have, so
I invited him out to the Everglades, said there was gonna be a party
He squeezed my shoulder on the way like, “You're my best friend, Marty.”

Now, I personally find these mentions of a “knife” and “slashed throats” and “rape” and whatnot in topical text battles really amateur hour writing and believe they should be left in the past. It doesn’t work. They don’t sound realistic or believable or shocking - they read more comedically and simply referencing an act happening without character development, emotion, visual imagery and some kind of combination of those three beforehand to give the reader a reason to become invested in a character enough to give a shit about what happens to them - it simply doesn’t work, it falls flat, it’s not shocking. It’s not an unexpected twist. Anyone who has done this thing of ours for a set amount of time knows these verses are ten a penny and can be found on every board ever. It’s played. It’s not fresh or new, it’s old hat. Do something different. Regurgitating the same thing that’s been done does nothing but stagnate the scene. So yeah, I wasn’t a fan of the ending:

What he didn’t know is that I brought my hunting knife
And when I jammed the blade into his gut, he said something like,
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, whatever I did, please don’t kill me!”
His hands were jarring, and my bloody fingernails were filthy
I tackled him to the ground, it was so easy to get him down
Slashing his throat until the gurgling sounds drowned out of his mouth
Days later, I was arrested.
They wondered how a kid like me could get so aggressive
Well, as the product of a cozy middle American family,
Consider this crime my message.

After that lengthy breakdown; I’m at a complete disagreement with the other voter so far and am firmly in the belief Ender won this by some margin. It’s not even close IMHO.