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Things to Consider in Making a Choice:
- How well the poem incorporates the authlete’s assigned word.
- Technical elements: meter, rhyme, form, shape, and other poetic standards.
- Creativity: wordplay, imagery, unusual approach, etc.
- Subtle elements that make the whole greater than the sum of its parts.
- Your overall response: emotional reaction such as admiration, tears, laughter, terror, or some indefinable feeling.
Here are the poems:
14-insubordinate
Bad Bus Behavior
by Darren Sardelli
You’re rude and insubordinate!
This nonsense needs to stop!
Your bus was just pulled over
by an angry, irate cop!
He saw you squirting ketchup
on the windows, doors, and seats,
then caught you spitting spitballs
at civilians on the streets!
I heard you used a pogo stick
to set off the alarm!
You stuck your gum in Brenda’s hair
and sneezed on Adam’s arm!
These acts are inexcusable!
There’s no more to discuss!
You’re relieved of your position
as the driver of the bus!
vs.
15-pseudonymous
The Amoeba Gang
by B.J. Lee
Albert the amoeba, a microscopic thief
had stolen from the hydra clan and now had come to grief.
The Unicellular Police were hot on Albert’s trail.
His pseudo-feet moved oh-so-slow. Would he be thrown in jail?
He tried to hang with slime molds, but they swam away from him.
The rotifers rejected him; his prospects now looked grim.
But suddenly he had a thought, a bright, pseudonymous plot—
a perfect way to slip and slide from this tight, ominous spot.
He fissioned once. He fissioned twice, and quick as one-two-three,
Al and Hal and Sal and Cal, all said, “It wasn’t me.”
