Week 11 Contenders: YDK vs. Innovator - (Inno wins)

[Vulgar]

LGPA Season 1: Week 11

@YDK @Innovator

Check ins: Thursday (Midnight Eastern time)
Poems Due: Friday (Midnight Eastern time)
Votes due: Sunday (Midnight Eastern time)


Topic:

See topic thread.


Good luck.

[YDK]

Yup

[Inno]

In

[Inno]

Tiny boots

Camouflage skin, the bodies curl up with the leaves
Shell casings for pavement. Walking on broken eggs
Scrambled radio frequency distorting the rains flow
Blood churning nights blend with the suns pride
An ego to bright to glance at with a naked eye
Brothers in arms armed ready to guard the night
Fox holes fox trotting along the trenches seeking shelter
Mordor dust falling like snow atop the martyrs
Trigger fingers dull from the pulse of each bullet
Penetrating innocence until it devours it hole
With false propaganda fueled by government aid
Whats the price to pay in order for the toys to play
Not much.

Millions in body parts, wealthy from the stolen souls
Marching along pushing agendas for the sake of marching
Killing spree for sport. While killing the free is sport.
Spent youth broke from the spoils of war, irony is fickle
Will is subjective. Freedom isnt absent, just misplaced
These slaves with no accents. Thinking they are righteous
Beleiving in there sergeants, ordered to go blind.
Diving from the edges, blindly following laws and badges
Right or wrong is outcasted.

You dont get payed to think. HOOORAHHH!!

[YDK]

Mysterious girl,
Please give me a sign
A horoscope couldn't describe you
Yet our stars are aligned.
Fractal body,
In every shape and size
Perfectly loveable, emotionless eyes
Exploding inside,
My hearts part of the shrapnel
You're forever my queen
While I play king;
completely astral.
Touch my soul,
God's embodiment emblazoned,
We can dance among the stars
While the galaxy's fading.
Her devotion's amazing
Neptune MUST be proud
She can cry me a river, never casting a cloud.
I won't let her down,
The epitome of pure
Romanticism blossoms,
The years are a blur.
She's one for the ages
Ageless and passionate
Transcending perfection
And charmingly adamant.
When I gaze at the stars
There's nothing I'd rather see
Than the love of my life,
My wife;
A Pisces

[sral]

YDK: Dope shit, I wouldn't really call it a twist ending but your flip into dedicating it to your wife was a really nice touch to me and made it all "real" and relatable.

My favourite actual lines were near the beginning with the whole "Fractal body" and spaced themed references/tie-ins. Almost like an extended metaphor you carried throughout the piece. Really enjoyable read and I much prefer your style in this league than your one in the AOWL.

Inno: I loved the "shellcasings for pavements" line early on. You've a great use of descriptive imagery and a way of wording things that makes your shit stand out. Really developed writers voice. I liked your idea of the soldiers being other people's playthings or toys, too. That was nicely executed. The ending was almost polarising, I love unhappy endings and cheering on antiheros so your finale was almost Alan Moore-esque in that sense to me and I dug the ass of it!

Nice battle but I'm giving this to Inno!

[Spoken]

Inno- the sheer inagery laid in this was a nice touch. U described the emotion to such a burden it felt as if I was a soldier lol. The content in this wasnt as expected honestly.. thought u would capitalize later on but u kept it straight to the point and honestly felt that it did u good after reading it through.

Ydk- my man such an abstract piece and I honestly didnt see u taking that route. The deeming emotion was subtle yet u played it all the way thru and kept it strong. I can hear this in spoken word and its dope. I liked the touch that this was for your wife my dude. Props.

I have a debatable here as I liked both... for my personal liking since both wrote well... I have to go with YDK.

[Frank]

YDK...

Props... Neptune is the planet of Pisces. Had to look it up. I thought you had just put any old planet to describe Pisces, but you remained true to the astrological aspect of it. This was a powerful example of less is more. Those tiny lines packed a wallop. I thought that was cool. I could never contain myself like that. I would rather get the most out of each line, exhausting it off it's possibilities. This is what I would call "Deft". 'Touch my soul' 'Let you down' 'One for the ages' all prime examples and all communicating volumes of depth in tiny amounts of space. Of all the people who chose this picture, you did it the most justice. Nice one.

Innovator..

I wrote to the tiny boots pic also and you did it justice, man. The fox trotting along the trenches was beautiful imagery. I really liked that line and the lines that would follow in it's wake before it would trail into more personal territory. If I remember correctly, you were also in the Marines? Well you went postal here in this poem, bud. You kind of used this type of style in the AOWL - and even earlier on in the NWL - and if memory serves me right, you were not that well received. Well now it seems you're finally in your element, my friend.

Only one verse must win.
I am voting for YDK, but it is close.

[Vulgar]

Innovator - You closed there at the end well. Reminded me of the climax of the movie Jarhead. The language ranged from cool to a bit tiresome. I didn't like the blood churning nights line, but I was feeling the 'kill for sport' play. Overall, somewhat interesting of a read.

YDK - okay so this had potential. It had a successful "I'm going to tell you a tale in storybook form..." tone of voice to it. The ground was covered there. However, sometimes you try to go for advanced sounding clusters of words and it throws off the hallmark-ness of it. For example, embodiment emblazoned is very forced. 'Completely astral' was interesting, but it didn't work 100%. I think having smooth, believable, relevant transitions was key here, and you were weak around those joints and edges.

I'm going with Inno here for better comprehensiveness in his poem.

[Sn00p]

Shell casings for pavement. Walking on broken eggs
^this line had so much potential. it's one of the best of the verse. but i don't like that u said "FOR pavement". that sounds like, "it's almost as if shell casings were their pavements", which implies that they aren't. but what u are saying is that they, in fact, are. so i feel like this could've been more powerful "pavement of shell casings" or "shell casings are their pavement" or w/e. u get the idea. i just don't like the "for" to connect the two concepts. yes, i'm probably nitpicking, but especially in poetry, it's the small things.

Scrambled radio frequency distorting the rains flow
^loved the scrambled tie in w/ eggs

Fox holes fox trotting along the trenches seeking shelter
^nice allusion to the nato alphabet. subtle things like these are the most powerful imo

Trigger fingers dull from the pulse of each bullet
^this felt very vivid. especially the word pulse. nice description/visual

Penetrating innocence until it devours it hole
^if this misspelling was on purpose, it's actually kinda dope, becuz then u can read the line as, "until it devours it - hole", meaning that only a hole is left after everything else's been devoured. if not, proofread ur verses lol

With false propaganda fueled by government aid
^this is way too obvious for my taste. false propaganda is such an absolute, unsubtle, blunt way of saying it. leaves nothing to the imagination/interpretation

Whats the price to pay in order for the toys to play
Not much.
^again here. too blunt. u don't have to answer the question. just leave it as a question. that's FAR more powerful. but the question itself was dope. just leave out the answer. the poem loses nothing if u exclude it and gains nothing if u add it

Will is subjective. Freedom isnt absent, just misplaced
These slaves with no accents. Thinking they are righteous
Beleiving in there sergeants, ordered to go blind.
Diving from the edges, blindly following laws and badges
Right or wrong is outcasted.

You dont get payed to think. HOOORAHHH!!
^some of the last part is again too literal for my taste. e.g. "blindly following laws and badges". the last line's dope tho. maybe it would've been even more powerful if u made it clear that the "u don't get paid to think" part is an interruption of the exact thought processes that took place earlier in the poem. doing it like this for example:

These slaves with no accents, thinking they are righteous,
believing in there sergeants, ordered to go blind;
diving from the edges, blindly following laws and badges,
right or wrong is outcasted —

You don't get paid to think. HOOORAHHH!!

This way, the punctuation is ongoing, flowing w/ the thought process until the interrupting "stop thinking!" in the last line. idk. that feels like a dope end to me. yours was good as well. btw, i'm not telling u how to write ur shit. i'm merely saying how i'd write, and not so that u write that way, but that u understand how i'd do it & why i'd do it that way. & then u can take that into consideration when writing smth. so yea, sorry if this feels condescending or smth, telling u how to write ur own verses.

i liked ur verse tho. i had some rly strong strong points and some shit i would've done differently/think could've been improved. also, proofread ur verses lol



Mysterious girl,
Please give me a sign
A horoscope couldn't describe you
Yet our stars are aligned.
^sign - horoscope - stars aligned. nice tie-ins. but "a horoscope couldn't describe you" feels somewhat off to me. it sounds like "EVEN a horoscope couldn't describe you", but that's now what horoscopes do

Fractal body,
^nice
In every shape and size
^huh? her body is in every shape and size? i think smth like "transcends shape and size" works better. ur version implies that she is either multi-bodied or all shapes and sizes at once. and that seems to be going against the rest of the poem

Perfectly loveable, emotionless eyes
^"perfectly loveable" seems a bit mundane for such on otherworldly lady

Exploding inside,
^nice rhyme scheme

completely astral.
^liked this

She can cry me a river, never casting a cloud.
^ehh, this is too idiomatic. feels somewhat old/cliché

The epitome of pure
Romanticism blossoms,
The years are a blur.
^she is the epitome of pure romanticism and as she blossoms, years rush by in a blur? i like it

She's one for the ages
Ageless and passionate
Transcending perfection
And charmingly adamant.
When I gaze at the stars
There's nothing I'd rather see
Than the love of my life,
My wife;
A Pisces

the whole "otherworldly, astral, fleeting figure" thing worked at some parts, where u executed it well. i liked those parts. some had real nice lines. but it didn't work (at least for me) at the parts where u became a bit cliché. for example in the last paragraph: "the love of my life". that's such a cliché thing to say. no offense at all, but if you spend the whole poem talking her up and making her seem like this astral goddess, you can't apply these overused, mundane, worldly phrases to her. if u had kept the fragile, transcendent tone throughout the whole piece, it would've really worked. especially w/ the picture. and that would've made the ending that much more impactful, because the contrast would be even greater, between this crystalline goddess u described and in the end, u reveal that she is just a normal human. but it doesn't rly work (at least for me) w/ cliché phrases thrown in before the end, because those make her seem normal before the revelation. your piece still had some strong lines and nice plays and tie-ins. like i said above, don't take this as me being condescending, telling u how to write. it's just that my process when judging these things is to go thru them and think about how i would've done them and then make these thoughts transparent as a basis for my judgment.



i think i gotta give this to innovator. both poems could be improved in some areas in my humble opinion. but i had less gripes with inno's piece i think. ydk had a really good idea imo, that lacked a bit in execution, which, in turn, made the idea seem not as brilliant as it was. this is really close tho, plus it's a poetry battle, so it's hard to decide a winner anyways. but i got innovater. also, this was definitely a pleasant read. i enjoyed both verses and both had some lines that made me stop & think about them. which is exactly what i hope to get out of these kind of pieces. props to both.
v/innovator