[Dominate]

Thoroughly enjoyed both verses, great job guys.

NYC - as always your vocabulary was impressive. You use it well - it doesn't feel like you're showing off, - you just use it to paint a vivid picture concisely. The plot was something pretty fresh to me and the nuances of the story were quite creative. The historical context was fairly explicit anyway but your choice of names, foods, etc kept that setting in mind throughout. The early character development was excellent - lines like 'crumples the letter sent from this chief of fools' and 'who knows more about social systemic cycles than him?' really conveyed his arrogance and anger well. I wasn't totally clear on the relationship - did he love her or was she just a piece of ass and recruit to his cause? It didn't really matter - just made me unsure if his subsequent grief after her death was just guilt or if there was more to it. "he sat silently in muted surprise as teary friends spoke of light’s loss in the blue of her eyes" was lovely and the penultimate couplet was powerful. My only complaints about this verse are that I found "she's got ass and she's cute" a little jarring - that choice of words was too modern for your character IMO... and I think him slipping away into death at the end was unnecessary and maybe a little cliche. But overall I thought this was very good.



Certain - I really liked your angle, telling the various ways the important people in your character's life all left him and bringing it all together in a picture of loneliness at the end. The last line line was superb, extremely poignant and connected the topic picture to your story perfectly. One of the best closers to a verse I can remember. I varied in how much I liked each of the preceding stanzas. Some of it was great, some I had problems with. I hated the opening tbh. "Crimson teardrop" was kind of funny instead of being poetic... "the first face he saw" followed in the second stanza by "mother was second" threw me off - I read it as "the second face he saw" rather than "the second person who left him" which I think you intended upon re-reading... so that made me think of the mother still in the hospital and having died in childbirth, but then the character setting the table didn't make sense.... Okay, things got much better after that. The return to tying fish nets and the firm handshake was a nice touch. The Gloria stanza was great - "creaking baritone" was a great descriptor and "She raised two kids. He paid the bills. She made his lunch. He grayed and filled." was excellent. I like the ending of the Tommy stanza - very poignant - and the way you revealed Jess's cancer was very clever, very well done.




Alright... I think Certain's take on the topic was better. Both of you went with a story that ended with the topic picture, but where NYC's story's ending merely fit adequately with the picture, Certain's captured its essence perfectly. Although Certain had a couple of great ones, on the whole I think NYC's descriptors were much superior... although Certain had some very clever writing which I commented on above. I think the deciding factor for me on this one is the consistency of which I enjoyed the writing though. Certain had elements I thought were superb, but also parts I just didn't really enjoy, whereas NYC's writing was consistently very good. Great battle guys.

v/ NYC