Spoken 0-2 vs Dearg 0-0 - DEARG WINS 5-1

[sral]

Week AOWL Season V, Week 11


SUMMARY OF RULES:

Verses are due
Tuesday at 9 p.m. Pacific/West Coast or Tuesday 11:59 PM Eastern / 6:00 AM Wednesday Central European/London
There are NO extensions.

Verses MUST be a minimum 10 lines or a maximum of 48 lines (or 650 words).

Votes are due Friday at 4:00 p.m. Western / or Friday 7:00 PM Eastern / 1:00 AM Saturday Central European/London Failure to vote will result in automatic sign out for the next week.

All competitors must vote on THREE battles and post links/ references in the voting thread.

Read the full rules here!



Topic:

G/Luck

@Spoken @Dearg

[Spoken]

Check.

[Dearg]

Good luck brother. Let's make it a classic.

[Dearg]

In the beginning it was hard, defending my heart,
just pretending not to scar- depending on the art.
Submitting to the sharks swimming toward my star,
everything I'd written, bitten and torn apart.

When the water cleared and my daughter appeared,
I felt stronger, rear views showed monsters and fear.
Writing until sleep, I'm simply fighting to eat,
surviving on dreams, envy and dying to sing.
My lungs are the sword that drums in my war,
love is the award as my blood calms the storm.
Worrying about my family, working's a calamity,
hurting for sympathy, empathy burning and damaging.
Foreclosure around the corner, drowning over and over,
shoulders grounded like boulders, traveling like soldiers and rovers.
I told her daddy was getting older, going forward gets colder,
she said "we are getting closer," showing bolder composure.

I got a gig in Dublin, thirty minutes in front of six hundred,
my stomach strugglin', cemented my love with intense function.
The sound of my heart surrounds the dark,
I'm bound by the stars... I've found my art.

The lights dim as the night spins,
while my mic sits below my eyelids.
My life gives me these divine gifts,
a surprise stemming from deprived rifts.
I sip my whiskey, my lips gripping,
my lyrics whistling, the silence bending.
Spirits whispering through a quiet city,
visions glistening like an iris dripping.
Fingertips strumming the instrument's tummy,
a tenderness humming like a mothership; lovely.
My deliverance is stunning like wilderness honey,
the crowd sings my words- a lyricist's one dream.

[Spoken]

Out on the porch we used to valiantly speak,
Traded stories that were corny still aiding the weak.
Took time to develop like black film captures,
Phasing blindly to the kindly ridden opium casters.
Coffin or casket, bet u never noticed the asher,
Difference is it only mattered of what value u can gather.
Pessimist; we loomed across pebbles as rebels
To watch the effect ripple more of bass than treble.
Shadow boxing the demons that gave darkness a reason
let it fold to let it go and found my heart in the deep end.
Scarred battered and bruised, pickibg away to get it tuned,
The instrument of such havoc has been damaged; defused.
Walked it half way then felt my feet has gained way,
Carried to the sacred grounds were we announced I was safe.
I looked into the eyes and felt the static become a lie,
Never tension just progression as we have to let the other ones die.
This is life its a pattern some are left on a backburn,
While I watch friend to foe defiantly woe as I sketch on backwards.
To see the damage I leave and see the masses that weep,
A grim reaper, the creeper that loves to kill all hopes and dreams.
@Adonis @Lars we open baby

[timeless]

Dearg, im having trouble as to where your verse relates to the topic at hand. You became rhyme heavy, relying on multis to carry you through. The transitioning from bar to bar was also tough to get through at certain times. Overall, not to sound like I dick, I didn't particularly enjoy this. You obviously rushed your ideas here and jumped around from thought to thought. Take more time next week to flesh out what you're going to pen down, it will help make your verse not seem so forced with every line.

Spoken, so now after reading your verse, you have very similar flaws as your opponent. The typos were annoying. It was hard to connect the verse with the topic given and a lot of the rhyming/multis seemed forced. You started off strong then kind of fell into an abyss of nothing and a half-ass ending.

Looks like both writers here need some WD40 asap. I'm not familiar with dear, but the rust is definitely showing with spokens verse. This is a tough battle to vote on, I think I have to go with Dearg for having a more rounded verse story-wise. Could see this going either way though.

V. DearG

[Sovereign]

SOVEREIGN'S VOTE ON BATTLE: Dearg vs Spoken

Dearg: This one didn't try to be metaphorical or deep or poetic at all; you just told a story. That's fine, but what wasn't fine about this verse was the awful rhyming. Almost every other multi set was broken; that level of awfulness makes a verse unreadable.

The story itself? Meh. It was just about the most obvious thing that anyone could have imagined for this topic, coupled with basic and poorly-thought-out emotional ploys, such as the mentions of a hard life and a loving daughter.

I'll also give a special mention to this line:

Originally Posted by Dearg

Fingertips strumming the instrument's tummy,

as the most unintentionally hilarious thing I've read in a long time. Final Score: 7/20

Spoken: You went for a more metaphorical angle than your opponent, but I wasn't feeling it. Actually, scratch that - what the hell was this even? What did it mean? How does this connect with the picture/text... wut da fuq is dis?

The rhyming was weak; less broken than your opponent's, but less complex as well, and still had issues with bad multies. More importantly though, even though I found meaning in this, I felt like I was overthinking the lines and reading it in. Maybe that was your intention, maybe it wasn't. But in the end, this seemed overwrought at best. Final Score: 8/20

Final Thoughts: Both were weak but I enjoyed one slightly more.

Spoken gets my vote over Dearg (8 - 7)

[Bobby Bigelow]

I felt both could have related to the topic a little more effectively. Dearg had a decent piece, I understood the struggling artist angle and it came together well for me in the end story-wise. I have to agree with Sovereign in terms of the piece being multi-heavy which took away from a good opportunity to expand on the idea more rather than having to search for the next multi, which might not have fit the scheme of what you were going for as well as something that could have been a single syllable rhyme. Just something to think about for next time.

For Spoken, I feel your piece was a little more thought provoking, but didnt relate to the topic as well as Dearg's did. This piece had its bright spots though. I really liked the rebel/treble line. While reading this I found the flow really easily and it was a breeze to get through but in the end I was looking for more relation to the topic and that is why my vote goes to Dearg.

[e11even]

Dearg- I liked this drop. To me it seemed all over the place but became more focused middle to end. It doesn't state a resolution to the plights presented though(foreclosure, parenthood, etc). You kinda abandoned your introductory arguments to recalibrate your trajectory. Not a bad thing necessarily, but if someone is paying attention they'll notice you left them hanging. Rhyming was ok, but your wording changed in the last portion to what I think was the better end of this performance. You loosely stuck to the topic at hand as well. Good job overall though.

Spoken- I can't say I liked or disliked this, as it just was. I could not apply this ambiguous memoir to the topic because there were no obvious parallels. This was ambitious as a text, but at the end it kinda comes off as pretentious nonsense. I apologize for being blunt, but I feel like if I read it twice and I still have too many questions, then it was not entirely enjoyable and most of it was just not placed correctly or simply over my head. Some parts you laid out did sound good tho, but the whole was not a cohesive piece, not in this battle anyway. This verse was clearly an interpretive work, but these types of drops are always a gamble. Nice try and good job.

This battle came down to who could deliver the piece with less blemishes and I wished for more. I'm glad you guys showed and I see the potential but it seemed like the effort wasn't given too much to the topic. That said, MVGT DEARG for the overall better verse IMO. Thanks for showing guys.

[Mr. J]

Foreclosure around the corner, drowning over and over,
shoulders grounded like boulders, traveling like soldiers and rovers.
I told her daddy was getting older, going forward gets colder,
she said "we are getting closer," showing bolder composure.

^^^
Im the type of person that likes using rhymes like this but this was overkill for me
the progress of the story is nice but when I reach the soldiers and rovers Im done
its nice to let go of some of these lines like this and switch it up before going on & on
its cool but I wanted a bigger pop at the end of that section than a barrage of rhymes
either way as I keep reading you really rounded down in the end bringing some nice groundwork
I enjoyed your verse for the most part, just didnt like that section really...

Spoken, I would like to quote something from your verse but I dont think I can
your verse comes broken into fragments of nice ideas and missing the target.
regardless you had the potential to craft a stronger verse had you taken more time
with that being said I feel your performance should applauded for its valiance
nice work...

v/I feel as though that Dearg came with a more well-rounded verse for all to read
his verse had a random set of lines that would make a person laugh upon first reading
but isnt a slouch as far as building his verse around some impressive use of rhyming
Spoken on the other hand would have had the better verse had he used time to edit his verse
worked with his ideas and made them more fuller I feel it would have been an evenly leveled match
either way I have

v/Dearg

[UnbornBuddha]

Dearg: This was simple, nothing too visually eye-catching, to be frank. it felt rushed and thematically fragmented, albeit with a connotative aim to the fellow lyricists. And their dreams and whatnot, which usually are conceived early on and without basis on the reality of the situation. It still transitioned nice from line to line, even if the lines themselves were segmented without a continuous motion to them.

Spoken: In one hand, the approach was more thoughtful than Dearg's, or it appears to. I mean sometimes it is easy to try disguise meaningless sentiments with deepness, not saying this was the case, but thought provoking works need to be discriminated further. The wording felt choppy and this is not even isolating the grammatical mistakes that make your work appear more amateurish because its clear you did not edit, which is a huge detriment. But, yes I feel there's something about your wording that is jarring in some way, the order of words, while syntactically correct still feel jumbled in this puzzling way I can't put my finger on.

Vote: Dearg

[Dearg]

5-1
@sraL @Adonis