I hope you both enjoyed this weeks topic; I selected this knowing the two of you often opt for a storyline narrative over the more topical approach, but I was also mindful of the fact that Master Rock prefers to tap into the emotional aspect of his writing while Scar has a penchant for descriptive visual imagery and characterisation to bring his stories to life. I thought this choice was inspired and almost plays to both your strengths somewhat in that regard. There’s an emotional aspect with the love the couple share, yet the sun clearly setting on their relationship as their days draw to a close. The inevitable happening before their eyes. Possibly with a new dawn beginning afterwards, yet there they stand - defiant - together ready to brace whatever may come their way. I thought you would both like this one.
Master Rock: I think I noted in the magazine this week the improvement we’ve seen in you over the past month, or two to three months even if anyone cares to look back, but definitely over the past four weeks or so we’ve seen a determined Rock who’s not only showing up - but showing out. This hasn’t just happened by chance, you’ve now been consistently challenging against those some may perhaps generally consider a tier above you and I think you’re all the better for it. More battle hardened. More determined. More committed to pushing yourself to achieve that breakthrough win and scoping a title to your name.
There’s a marked improvement to your writing also with those lines like “swallowing up the tides,” and “footsteps in the sand while the hourglass suspends,” where even the word association works and these fragments are scattered throughout with turns of phrase that stand out when read while I look back just to even in the earlier AOWL season match vs Pharaohs Army where you presumably phoned it in rather last minute just to meet the deadline… this verse is far and away better than what we saw from you then.
I thought you did well here, the emotional presence was there for sure (as expected) but this went beyond ‘just’ that due to the layered tie-ins and constant call backs to the visuals contained in the image. I enjoyed this one a lot, not just for the rhyme placement but also due to how invested you seemed to be in the topic image itself with references throughout and how you interwove your narrative to be include those alongside your central characters - The approach was direct and your focus remained consistent throughout here. This isn’t you merely showing up to take part with a rushed keystyle before deadline, this is you wanting to win. The hunger is there and it’s palpable when reading this that you weren’t playing around.
Scar: I really liked the idea of “chewing gum pop sound announced that summers begun,” which I thought was a good way of conjugating up that imagery early on. It had a Deadman-esque feel throughout those opening four lines for me, setting the scene, but sort of showing the reader rather than simply telling them. There’s a difference between the two, I think you understand that. “Bumbling pirouette,” was another standout descriptor for me here and I enjoyed that one too. I did feel that the central character of “Billy” was somwhat underdeveloped (pardon the pun) in that way that he was just sort of referred to by name without the reader really being given a chance to get to know what made him tick of feel for what would happen to him, especially after the scene setting from the start, I felt you could have perhaps used more by way of character development there to build up some thing that had the reader invested in his plight. In fact, on a second read, it was really at the point of him being introduced that I felt you perhaps lost a little steam here to be truthful. In notice the line lengths begin to creep up slowly, the wording for me isn’t as crisp as it is as early on, though I did enjoy the “pen and paper plane,” and “but his words took flight,”. Now, in terms of overall execution, I actually preferred your experiment the more of the two. I don’t think there was much to separate the pair of you from a rhyme scheme perspective or technical standpoint, and I’m not really someone to mark up ‘vocabulary’ as I don’t place a massive emphasis on that sort of thing but the two of you did well in terms of unique terms of phrase and associative wordplay throughout while tying it to the image — I did feel that Scar perhaps attempted something different and left-field with the topic which I give kudos for the creativity but overall this week I have Master Rock winning in terms of his rhyme placement, storytelling ability, and his execution.
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