Week 2 - Pancakebrah (0-0) vs. King Ra (0-0) - KING RA. WINS 5-3

Certain · 10-06-2013, 02:37 AM

PancakeBrah: I've read this verse at least four times because of how silky smooth it all is. You convey your emotions through images, but it never feels opaque or vague. This is what subtlety is supposed to be. The natural diction flows directly into the cadence, helped by slick rhyming. The big difference between our writing is that mine usually feels cynical and jaded while yours feels sullen and contemplative, like the Violent Femmes vs. Belle & Sebastian. Anyway, I loved the letter part of this and thought the idea of the imagination part of it was good. But the execution was a bit off on that. At first, I considered suggesting adding a fourth stanza, but I think that would seriously cut into the subtlety of it. Anyway, whether this was a love poem to the board or not, I liked the theme a lot. The details of "rereading periods and pauses" and "I'm not trying to drink. Or mention drink in my rhymes." were great. By the way, I'm going to call attention to a really beautiful piece of language here and wonder partially if it was intentional because it seemed profound: "I'm not trying to drink" is such a completely different phrase than "I'm trying not to drink," and it fits so much better. The drinking is just what happens, an inevitability. That was an important moment for me in this verse, which seemed to focus on inevitabilities.

King Ra.: It was really startling to jump from PancakeBrah's subtleties into this in-your-face approach, but I liked the jarring shift. The patterned stop-and-start feel of the first eight lines really set that mood and built on the content well, but you were smart enough to abandon that style at the moment when it was going to feel grating and obnoxious. The story itself felt a little too much like a character sketch without a plot. A truncated version of this would have made a great introduction to a larger story. But there are line limits and reader attention spans in a league such as this, and those need to be considered. You pulled off the character sketch because you weren't overly redundant and you had some very good phrasing. "Death's second hand. Amid the smoke & the fumes," was really nice. You didn't force your rhymes, but part of that was because your rhymes were relatively straightforward. More creativity in lyricism would have been appreciated. The open-ended finish was a wise choice for the structure of your verse. We're expected at that point to know that she wins the fight. I kept thinking of the titular protagonist from the Flaming Lips' "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots." That's the kind of story I really admire, and while you created a similar character and did it well, your story wasn't as fleshed out or real. Ultimately, that's what cost you this excellent battle.

Vote: PancakeBrah

10-06-2013, 02:37 AM	#6
Certain Mad fucking dangerous. Join Date: Jul 2013 Posts: 12,066 Battle Record: 40-19 Champed - AOWL Season 3 - Art of Writing League (2x) Rep Power: 85899406	PancakeBrah: I've read this verse at least four times because of how silky smooth it all is. You convey your emotions through images, but it never feels opaque or vague. This is what subtlety is supposed to be. The natural diction flows directly into the cadence, helped by slick rhyming. The big difference between our writing is that mine usually feels cynical and jaded while yours feels sullen and contemplative, like the Violent Femmes vs. Belle & Sebastian. Anyway, I loved the letter part of this and thought the idea of the imagination part of it was good. But the execution was a bit off on that. At first, I considered suggesting adding a fourth stanza, but I think that would seriously cut into the subtlety of it. Anyway, whether this was a love poem to the board or not, I liked the theme a lot. The details of "rereading periods and pauses" and "I'm not trying to drink. Or mention drink in my rhymes." were great. By the way, I'm going to call attention to a really beautiful piece of language here and wonder partially if it was intentional because it seemed profound: "I'm not trying to drink" is such a completely different phrase than "I'm trying not to drink," and it fits so much better. The drinking is just what happens, an inevitability. That was an important moment for me in this verse, which seemed to focus on inevitabilities. King Ra.: It was really startling to jump from PancakeBrah's subtleties into this in-your-face approach, but I liked the jarring shift. The patterned stop-and-start feel of the first eight lines really set that mood and built on the content well, but you were smart enough to abandon that style at the moment when it was going to feel grating and obnoxious. The story itself felt a little too much like a character sketch without a plot. A truncated version of this would have made a great introduction to a larger story. But there are line limits and reader attention spans in a league such as this, and those need to be considered. You pulled off the character sketch because you weren't overly redundant and you had some very good phrasing. "Death's second hand. Amid the smoke & the fumes," was really nice. You didn't force your rhymes, but part of that was because your rhymes were relatively straightforward. More creativity in lyricism would have been appreciated. The open-ended finish was a wise choice for the structure of your verse. We're expected at that point to know that she wins the fight. I kept thinking of the titular protagonist from the Flaming Lips' "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots." That's the kind of story I really admire, and while you created a similar character and did it well, your story wasn't as fleshed out or real. Ultimately, that's what cost you this excellent battle. Vote: PancakeBrah __________________ I'm just swinging swords strictly based on keyboards, unbalanced like elephants and ants on seesaws.