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The NeoGAF Poetry Society: Challenge #13: Society
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Theme: Society
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From wiki:

"A society or a human society is (1) a group of people related to each other through persistent relations such as social status, roles and social networks. (2) A large social grouping that shares the same geographical territory and is subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations. Human societies are characterized by patterns of relationships between individuals sharing a distinctive culture and institutions. Without an article, the term refers either to the entirety of humanity or a contextually specific subset of people.

Used in the sense of an association, a society is a body of individuals outlined by the bounds of functional interdependence, possibly comprising characteristics such as national or cultural identity, social solidarity, language or hierarchical organization.

Like other groupings, a society allows its members to achieve needs or wishes they could not fulfill alone; the social fact can be identified, understood or specified within a circumstance that certain resources, objectives, requirements or results, are needed and utilized in an individual manner and for individual ends, although they can't be achieved, gotten or fulfilled in an individual manner as well, but, on the contrary, they can be gotten only in a collective, collaborative manner; namely, team work becomes the valid functional means, to individual ends which an individual would need to have but isn't able to get.

More broadly, a society is an economic, social or industrial infrastructure, made up of a varied collection of individuals. Members of a society may be from different ethnic groups. A society may be a particular ethnic group, such as the Saxons; a nation state, such as Bhutan; a broader cultural group, such as a Western society. The word society may also refer to an organized voluntary association of people for religious, benevolent, cultural, scientific, political, patriotic, or other purposes. A "society" may even, though more by means of metaphor, refer to a social organism such as an ant colony or any cooperative aggregate such as for example in some formulations of artificial intelligence. "

Having said that, you are free to interpret the theme as you see fit. :lol

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Secondary Objective: Ballards
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A ballad is a short narrative poem which is written to be sung (in the olden times at least) and has a simple but dramatic theme. Ballads can be of love, death, the supernatural or even a combination of the three. Many ballads also contain a moral which is expressed (most often) in the final stanza.

More info here.

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Poetry thread Rules version 1.2:
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1. This thread is not merely for winning or losing, but for critiquing and improving your own craft.
2. This poetry thread 'contest' will end on a Friday, and voting will last until Sunday at midnight. You cannot win unless you vote. Although you don't have to submit a piece to vote.
3. The winner must then provide the next challenge theme for the following two week period. Some weeks like during E3, this may not be possible, so we will have an interim one week period until normality is resumed. As a general rule, we like to keep this on the alternate week to the Creative Writing Thread.
4. There are no word count limits, make it as long or as short as you want.
5. Optional secondary objectives are not mandatory, you can include them or not.
6. Further addition to rule five: you can also try the secondary objective as a secondary piece. Just make sure you label it as such.
7. Vote for your favourite poems. Voters should award first, second and third places to their favourite three poems. Don't vote for the same author twice. And watch out for pieces that are labeled ineligible. Comments on these pieces labelled as such are welcome but you just can't vote for them.
8. During the count, First place is allocated three points. Second place is allocated two points. And third place is allocated one point.
9. In the event of a tie, the tally will be counted again with first place being allocated three and half points. If it isn't resolved then, it will be up to the OP (most likely the previous winner) to decide to how to go about things.
10. Winner gets a round of applause and will have the records stating it as such. After which Rule 3 is in effect and we start a new thread.

Deadline: Friday, October 15th, 2010 at 11:59pm, Pacific.

You should get your votes in by: Sunday, October 17th, 2010 at 11:59pm, Pacific.

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Previous Threads:
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Poetry Thread #01: Reflection
Poetry Thread #02: Making the Blind See (+ 5W poems)
Poetry Thread #03: Interior (+ Incorporate a song or album title)
Poetry Thread #04: History (+ Dream Song poems)
Poetry Thread #05: A View From Afar or Within (+ Clerihew poems)
Poetry Thread #06: The Surreal and the Fantastical (+ Haikus)
Poetry Thread #07: Expectations versus Reality (+ Ode)
Poetry Thread #08: Mirror's Edge (+ Rhymes)
Poetry Thread #09: Look on the Bright Side (+ poem must end with _________________ as it's last line)
Poetry Thread #10: Obsolete (+ Ink)
Poetry Thread #11: Pride (+ Kanye West)
Poetry Thread #12: Passing By (+allegory)
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final entries list


"Guest" by PolarBearsClub
"Collective" by AnkiT
"Lack of Focus" by Irish
"The Tower" by Bootaaay
"The abominably rich man" by Ashes1396
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Results
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1, AnkitT: 12 pts (4)
2, Ashes1396 5 pts (1)
3, Bootaay 5 pts
4, Polarbearsclub 4 pts
5, Irish 3 pts

Congratulations to... AnkitT! Well done mate...

Oh hell yeah! This was sorta what my last entry was about.

I promise I won't wait until the very last minute this time.

Nice theme, and I like the title change

The secondary objective suits me fine this time around - hopefully I can come up with something worthwhile.

So erm, Banksy was on Simpsons:

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=409836

.

Welcome back mate...
a day left for the rest of us people. Get your entries in.

The Red Cross is a red herring for the red wearing communists
White lies, white sheets and white lies for the people far from east
So let’s cover up crashes and uncover trash conspiracies
The Cherokee on a jet ski in a casino spending spree
Planting a tree inherently against gas guzzling oil spills
Overt hate when the whole mill is built on foreigner skills
So take that society, as a token of the spoken bond
As a crying child’s plea, dying across the pond before he's bombed
But ignore it because god's own country is the home court
Bibles door to door, but encyclopaedias still door stops and charred burnt
Revel in ignorance like the revered reverend who says the world will never end
Torturing infidels at Guantanamo the foreign soil, the means justify the end
Taking the structure in account, the accountants and financiers have found
That be it off shore rigs or accounts, the debt will forever drown the sound
So take this society, lacking but still considered barely functioning
If it all goes to spit shit, at least we will have our fried onion rings
And we don’t even need one to rule them all, we have the posh shopping mall
Killing many birds with the first stone cast like abstinence during mating calls
We provide media coverage to uncovered hags yet we cover dead bodies
It’s the hypocritical decency that will fall prey to fallacy on the way to idiocracy
No child left behind until he reaches voting age, since the stage is set
The ideologies defined, indoctrinated, and segregated like a random bet
Waiting for superman to take this society and fix it because we’re too lazy
The crazy ones protected by the taxes and ultimately join the navy
The vision is burnt with repeat telecasts of adjusted belly laughs
So you know when to feel what in accordance to what the telly casts
So hand in hand we walk towards destruction with flashes that help it burn
Assisted by bureaucratic paperwork and the charge sheet until meeting adjourned

Many people, walking around
Stand still, get pushed to the ground

Driving backwards down a one-way street.
If I get out, I'll be dead on my feet.

Always moving with nowhere to go.
Way too busy to take things slow.

less than half a day to go folks...

The Tower

Wrought in steel
Wreathed in light
Impassive, cold
Towering through the night

Where a businessmen
Sits on gilded thrones
Silent and uncaring
Rotten to the bone

Manicured hands
Swirl a whiskey glass
Palms bare of labour
Decadence, their past

Fingers never lifted
In aid of another
Given a fair price
He'd sell his own mother

Now sirens sound
The call of the banshee
Through his misdeeds
Justice, come to claim thee
For all his opulence
He just couldn't see
For all his wealth
His conscience, forever an absentee

The abominably rich man


You live in a half shell
decrepit life. You do mister.

Whilst you fixedly stare,
at your neighbour's model wife,
the gardener lies limp,
behind you,
on the grass,
cutting anally,
the tips of the grass blade
at your behest, yes?

That line you caress,
the moral significance,
the superiority complex,
the wife you place in a black corset,
and have the foam of sweet champagne,
running like a stream over her sweet breasts,
having her cuckolding her husband,
to his duress,
by conflated dreams of sexual horizons,
or merely, using the rush of
zen, to cope with compulsive
transgression.

And to evening,
when you, moneyhat, give millions,
to lacklustre funds, and papers with
waggling tongues, dine
to the layers of fish eggs with bastard wine,
carried in by the waiter, whose last shift,
it will be, castrated by auction,
to the highest bidder or maybe a
foreign company?

And the passing millions,
from finger tip to hand stitched breast pockets,
the yacht, the liner,
the girl, mistress you bought, finer,
then the silk wrought in china;
hmm, and you see the decapitated
polio bound son,
from which fields your cloth
comes from, forced to consider,
the wages,
his mother, has to
live upon?
So you pledge the doubling of her wages, huh,
the gleefully greed, noting to investors, that you will
be making twice as much in return,
in the way of PR positive,
statements of intention. To the dumb duke of a consumer,
who will buy the licensed badge,
at forty times the factory price.

You, you sweet safe 'middle class',
phenomenon, paying charity when,
the strings are pulled, and not out of your monthly
income, you good natured dormant giant,
educating privately, your daughters and
sons, so that they may change the world,
whilst you worry in your pristine clean tea clubs,
looking down at their culture, and how lost
the youth, modern, are.

Entry list

"Guest" by PolarBearsClub
"Collective" by AnkiT
"Lack of Focus" by Irish
"The Tower" by Bootaaay
"The abominably rich man" by Ashes1396

1- Ashes1396 (Really impressive on the imagery!)
2- Irish
3- Bootaaay

HM- PolarBearsClub (Really love the way you word it)

Was a fight for the 2nd place b/w Irish and Bootaaay, but Irish's clicked with my own ideologies.

Hopefully we will get better turnouts in the future.

1. AnkitT - I really enjoyed this one, it flowed remarkably well.
2. Ashes - As AnkitT noted, there's some great imagery at play here.
3. PolarBearsClub - the last few lines make it, awesome stuff.

HM; Irish - succinct and to the point, I like it. It was real tough choosing between yours and PolarBear's.

A day left for voting for those who haven't.

I've read the entries this week. I'm gonna have a think about the votes after I've finished my crits...

Crits

@polarbearsclub: In the first instance, I had the impression of an engineer working in his car, which is more a reflection of what is running through my mind. But then a quick look at the title and the penny did drop. A thief right?
I don't understand the layout of the piece, though being free verse, this isn't an issue so to speak, but I like how it took me down the poem, a sort of in built rhythm.
I liked, the line 'brushing against metallic throat'. Metallic throat especially. Not only does it roll off the tongue playfully, making it fun to say, it also evokes a nice mental image.
I can sort of appreciate: 'a delicate tug'. But a 'tug' to me is still contradicting any kind of delicacy.

@Ankitt: This took me a while to settle down with but when I got into the groove it really did catch me in it's drift. I suppose it could be a modern 'ballad', a rhapsody if you will in the form of a rap. Although it is about the west per say rather then telling a tale as it were.
The biggest thing would be the presentation of the piece. Lines are longer then neccessary and may work better if you just separate the piece into stanza's of some sort. I'm sure if you read it, then it would appear a natural fit, but as it is slam poetry on paper, you kind of have to help/guide me down the page, so that I can read it as it is supposed to be read.
The other thing would be have an order of some kind to it. I love the way it flows so I don't have a clue how you would go about that, and by order I'm refferring to ordering the subject matter.

1. AnkitT. So many great lines! Abstinence during mating calls, telecasts of adjusted belly laughs. Really good

2. Irish. I wish this was longer! All of the lines really stand on their own.

3. Bootaaay. Really nice rhythm to this. Good imagery too.

1) AnkitT- "Collective" - A lot of great imagery here. Encapsulates the message nicely.
2) Bootaaay- "The Tower"
3) PolarBearsClub- "The Guest"

oops sorry... votes and results up in a jiffy...

votes:

1, AnkitT
2, polarbearsclub
3, Bootaay

hm: Irish (should have been longer mate. I liked what there was but wish it was longer)

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Results
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1, AnkitT: 12 pts (4)
2, Ashes1396 5 pts (1)
3, Bootaay 5 pts
4, Polarbearsclub 4 pts
5, Irish 3 pts

Congratulations to... AnkitT! Well done mate...

New thread is up:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=410760
Theme (The Dark)