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The NeoGAF Poetry Corner - Challenge #41: Escape

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The NeoGAF Poetry Corner - Challenge #41: Escape

Gil-Scott-Heron-260x260.gif


Theme: Escape

"Because I always feel like running
Not away, because there is no such place
Because, if there was I would have found it by now
Because it's easier to run,
Easier than staying and finding out you're the only one... who didn't run"


-- "Running", Gil Scott-Heron (1949 - 2011)​

Desperation, need, fear and more can drive us to escape, or at least to the cusp or desire of that action. Futile, cowardly or courageous: a moment reaches us all when we decide to enter its embrace. Or not. Perhaps more subtle is the escape we seek without even noticing.

Optional Secondary Objective: Poetry Slam

Perform your poetry, capture it on an audio file and upload it. Post it alongside your text version; however, it will not inform any element of judgement in voting. (See: SoundCloud, HulkShare or upload an MP3 onto a fileshare site like Megaupload)

Poetry Thread Rules 2.0

For poets entering:

  • You are allowed one entry based on the theme; and an optional second entry, if it meets the secondary objective.
  • There are no word counts. Interpret the theme as you wish.
  • If you're a brave soul, there is a 'super secret' optional objective: performing the poem. Don't worry - we will only judge your official entry (the written version). Try it out. Poetry Slams are always cool. ;)
For voters:

  • You can vote even if you haven't posted a poem.
  • Vote for your three favourite poems. But remember that:
    • you can't vote for your self
    • you can't pick two poems from the same author
    • you can't vote for an entry labelled 'ineligible'
  • You cannot win unless you vote.
Competition:

  • The contest runs for two weeks.
  • The deadline is on the last Friday. Once the final entry list is up, the voting begins; it finishes at the end of the weekend.
  • How we count the votes:
    • 1st place is allocated 3 pts; 2nd is allocated 2pts; 3rd is allocated 1pt
    • If there is no outright winner, we add half a point to 1st place, so that the person with the most first place votes win. If we still don't have a winner, we then leave it up to the op to decide how to best go about it; or to choose the outright winner
  • The winner gets a round of applause. They are then in charge of the new thread. If you can't make a new thread, just ask somebody in the current thread, and they might do it for you.
General:

  • This thread is not merely for winning or losing, but for critiquing and improving your own craft.
  • We like to keep the finale on the alternative week to its sister thread: the creative writing thread. Every so often, we get interrupted, such as during E3, and/or Nanowrimo.
  • The archives and the op templates are managed by Bootaaay. If you have a question about it, you can pm him.
  • A big thank you to him, and everybody else who manages the thread week in and week out. We would be worse off without them.
  • Everybody is welcome to enjoy the poetry on offer, or just vote, or just critique.

Submission Deadline; (PST)

January 6, 2012 11:00 PM PST

Voting Deadline; (PST)

January 10, 2012 11:00 PM PST

The NeoGAF Poetry Society: Previous Challenges:

Poetry Challenge #01: Reflection
Poetry Challenge #02: Making the Blind See (+ 5W poems)
Poetry Challenge #03: Interior (+ Incorporate a song or album title)
Poetry Challenge #04: History (+ Dream Song poems)
Poetry Challenge #05: A View From Afar or Within (+ Clerihew poems)
Poetry Challenge #06: The Surreal and the Fantastical (+ Haikus)
Poetry Challenge #07: Expectations versus Reality (+ Ode)
Poetry Challenge #08: Mirror's Edge (+ Rhymes)
Poetry Challenge #09: Look on the Bright Side (+ poem must end with _________________ as it's last line)
Poetry Challenge #10: Obsolete (+ Ink)
Poetry Challenge #11: Pride (+ Kanye West)
Poetry Challenge #12: Passing By (+ Allegory)
Poetry Challenge #13: Take this Society (+ Ballards)
Poetry Challenge #14: The Dark (+ Add Zombies to taste)
Poetry Challenge #15: The Great Winter (+ Elegy)
Poetry Challenge #16: What Nature Reclaims (+ Lay)
Poetry Challenge #17: Storm Clouds Rising (+ First Person)
Poetry Challenge #18: The Phoenix (+ Enjambment)
Poetry Challenge #19: Psychopomps (+ Assonance)
Poetry Challenge #20: Death in the Family (+ Limericks)
Poetry Challenge #21: A Night on the Town (+ Didactic Poems)
Poetry Challenge #22: A Letter to the World (+ Inside Outside Poetry)
Poetry Challenge #23: The Blues
Poetry Challenge #24: Space, Above & Beyond (+ Prose Poetry)
Poetry Challenge #25: Futurism (+ Avoid Technology)
Poetry Challenge #26: Prove you Exist (+ Lyrical Poetry)
Poetry Challenge #27: Love, Happiness, Peace, Summer & Pixar! (+ Couplets)
Poetry Challenge #28: Dying Earth (+ Blank Verse)
Poetry Challenge #29: War (+ Narrative/Epic Poems)
Poetry Challenge #30: Dreams (+ the return of First Person)
Poetry Challenge #31: At Gunpoint (+ Epic Poetry/Broetry)
Poetry Challenge #32: Two Sides of an Epic Coin Toss (+ Metre & Rhythm)
Poetry Challenge #33: Lust (+ Poetry Slam)
Poetry Challenge #34: Fear (+ Lyric Poetry *To Accompaniment)
Poetry Challenge #35: Detachment (+ A return to allegory)
Poetry Challenge #36: Open (+ Throw Paint on the Wall, See What Sticks!)
Poetry Challenge #37: Chained (+ Cinquain poetry)
Poetry Challenge #38: The Human Experience
Poetry Challenge #39: Of Plants & Trees (+ The return of the Limerick)
Poetry Challenge #40: Homelessness
 
The NeoGAF Poetry Society: Alumni's Archive

ulMAd.png


 
 
My first contribution to poetry-gaf... very free-form and stream-of-conscious.


"A Trip to the Moon"

I sit in a dark room with strangers who all want to escape
None of us talk to each other, yet we've all gathered to escape
We've gathered to see people die, and others be reborn
Our goal is to be transported into another world
None of us know the other, but we all listen to the same voice
We don't make eye contact, but we look at the same thing
We smile at the same time, and cry in unison
We share an individual bond through a connected passion
Our own triumph and defeat is reflected on a large canvas
But one can only escape for so long, before the lights come back on
 

Ashes

Banned
Welcome sir. Some of us like two titles. others like none! let me not be greedy, why not offer your poem an original one?

edit: Slow typist is slower then quick brained poet above. I accept my defeat... and humbly apologise...
 
Welcome sir. Some of us like two titles. others like none! let me not be greedy, why not offer your poem an original one?


I was so anxious to post that I hastily hit submit without considering that important prerequisite. However if you look above now you will see that I have provided the title you've asked of thee.
 

Ashes

Banned
I was so anxious to post that I hastily hit submit without considering that important prerequisite. However if you look above now you will see that I have provided the title you've asked of thee.

Happy new year... hic...

edit: oh good luck as well and all that.
 

iavi

Member
Ashes, you sexy motherfucker, you put your pic up! haha. Writer GAF is going to be so interesting with faces. How many of us are going to change our usual topic choices?
 

Ashes

Banned
Ashes, you sexy motherfucker, you put your pic up! haha. Writer GAF is going to be so interesting with faces. How many of us are going to change our usual topic choices?

I was in the girl gaf thread and there were more and more of photo avatars... I was like... what the? then jumped in before I had a chance to change my mind.

I think you're right though. It will be interesting. But I suppose when you're in the zone, sometimes you tend not to think of the mirror or the masses.

All in man. All in. :p

I miss my avatar for some reason.
 

Ashes

Banned
ziaPZ.jpg



Free Escape.

Oh light of light,
my art is your art,
how do I split asunder,
thunder and a 'lightning strike?

Cuddle a heart,
psychosomatic,
the solitary figure drawn
on a blank white page,

watch the match stick
figure walk off the page,
and do a little jig -

Heart, my friend,
why have you left me?
it is you who left me
friend, the heart replied.

- who covered up the stars?
the city lights.
dismantle it then,
throw away the crown.

close the book,
the eyes awake.
daylight breaks,
The dreamt life ends,
time to wake up and
rouse the splendour,
a good year awaits.
 

iavi

Member
Uke.

The Good of me,
Forever driven to drama with lust.
Immaturity. This entity--just never is he enough.
I reaching rapture with the roll of his tongue
Across the naked breadth of my chest.
The humid caress, begets it cautious breaths of ectasy.
Dome. All of Me. My conscious, forsaken me.
I don’t deserve such the good,
Shouldn’t walk the path of heaven,
When I can only get there with the love of the Devil.
Self-aware the syndrome. Servant of my own kingdom.
 
She dreams of feathered wings,
gold tipped and gleaming,
whisking her through the air
to far flung places, untainted
by the cold and silent despair
that gnaws at her every day,
as through paper thin walls
her parents shout and rage,
while she gladly retreats
to worlds written upon page,
and lives that seem so grand
away from her dreary streets,
that with corrupted breath
unjustly condemns it’s people
to a slow and agonising death.
 

iavi

Member
Looks like we got some pretty good ones this time around. I'll get my voting done early too, in just a bit.
 

iavi

Member
[Crit]

OrangeGreyBlue

I feel as if you need to work on your use of language, as it didn’t really grab in image or its portrayal of the idea, but I do dig the attempt on a larger idea like escapism. Gaf, the culprit?

TimtheWiz

Concise, and strong in image. This doesn’t feel as strong as your usual pieces to me, but it feels a bit more cohesive; the trade-off being worth it, imo. The line between love & hate, in all areas, a thin one, for sure.

Ashes -

The quandary created when escapism is ones actual hobby, is what I got here, and I love that. If I’m on the mark, that’s a damn interesting way to tackle the theme, and you did it in great language, as usual.

Bootaaay

Your imagery is as strong as ever, but this one felt like another time where the image, instead of bolstering the idea, took away its development time, with the little amount of txt you gave the piece. Funny thing is, I love how your piece is much like a sister piece to Tim’s, both taking the same subject, but from different perspectives. Together they create this absolutely vivid image of cause & effect, that easily would be the best thing written here when put together, but have their respective sufferings when split, I feel.

Votes

1. Ashes
2. Tim
3. Bootaaay

hm: OrangeGreyBlue

*I didn't actually get these in as early as I was planning, lol.
 

iavi

Member
I just realized that the deadline is set to tues... what gives, people? THAT'S NOT HOW THINGS WORK, lol.
 

Ashes

Banned
1. Bootaaay
2. Miri
3. Tim

hm: OrangeGreyBlue

Very little between the top 3; each has their merits, depth and that touch of poetry, whatever that may be.
 
Ashes -- Very well thought-out. Some good bouts of imagery. I especially like the three middle verses.

Bootaaay -- Lovely wording and imagery as always. Couldn't help but want more. But maybe that's a good thing?

Miri -- Conceptually engaging. A little trouble with some of the wording, but I really liked this.

OrangeGreyBlue -- A neat, laid-back poem with some good emotional weight behind it.

The split is usually more obvious in these things. Everyone brought a meaty compact poem this challenge. Might have to go find my thinking cap now.
 
1. Miri -- (It's been cleared up that "conscious" is meant to be "conscience", but:) I have a problem with the line, "I don’t deserve such the good". Ultimately, though, this hit me the most.
2. Bootaaay
3. Ashes

HM: OrangeGreyBlue
 
1. Tim the Wiz - well realised piece with some great language throughout.
2. Miri - flows particularly well with some really strong imagery, although I felt it didn't end as strongly as it began.
3. Ashes1396 - some excellent language in this piece, I find that your style and form gives a sense of gravitas to many of your poems, this being no exception.

HM; OrangeGrayBlue - I agree with Miri that your use of language could be better here, and although I felt it stuttered slightly with the repetition on the first two lines, overall you handle the subject well.
 
Sent OrangeGreyBlue a PM. We don't want this OP guy being the tiebreaker. I hear he's a shameless egotist.

Edit: And if he doesn't end up voting today, we could always just DQ Bootaaay's vote and give him the win. Sounds good? Sounds good.
 
Sorry guys!

1) Bootaaay: I really liked your approach to the topic and felt like yours had the most emotional weight behind it.

2) Ashes: Some great imagery here and it read very smoothly.

3) Miri: I really liked the black-and-white contrast of some of the ideas you had in your poem. An interesting take on this week's idea.

HM: Tim- Yours was great as well, and there's really very little separating my HM from 1st place. Some nice imagery through out the piece and I especially liked the opening line.
 
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