[click image to view matchup in full screen in a new window.]
The Poets’ Challenge: Each poet is assigned a single word based on their bracket seed, ranging from 1 (intuitive) to 16 (seemingly impossible). Poets must write a kid-appropriate poem using the prompted word in under 36 hours. Once both final poems have been received, they will be pasted into the body of this post, and then the reader poll will be open for voting.
Voter Instructions: Read each poem as many times as you’d like. Then use the poll to express your preference. Votes are counted in real time and cannot be changed once entered. As a guideline for voting, consider the criteria on which the contestants on the cooking show “Chopped” are evaluated: presentation, taste, and creativity. Translated roughly into poetry terms, presentation might include technical aspects such as meter, rhyme, form/shape, etc.; taste might be the net effect — did the poem move you to laugh, cry, think, kill, etc.; and creativity might include the poet’s approach toward a certain subject, image evocation, clever wordplay, etc.
“This is awesome, where can I find more?”: All results and scheduled matchups, including a glance at the round-by-round writing windows and voting windows, are visible from the Live Scoreboard page. In addition, results will be tweeted from @edecaria as they become final.
Here are the poems:
16-translucent
At 14, I Learn the Truth
by Susan Taylor Brown
One steamy shattered shower door
translucent glass coats the floor
I am a little girl
no more.
vs.
8-cement
Demented
by Donna Smith
Demented Cement Ed just loved building walls
He mortared and bricked them, some big and some small.
Ed built a high tower with brick upon brick,
But when he had finished, Ed’s stomach was sick!
The door was omitted, there was no way out,
Demented Cement Ed is still there, no doubt.
He’s surely lamented and even repented,
But nevertheless his fate’s been cemented!
VOTE NOW!
16-translucent vs. 8-cement: Which Poem Did You Prefer?
- 16-translucent (Susan Taylor Brown) (55%, 95 Votes)
- 8-cement (Donna Smith) (45%, 79 Votes)
Total Voters: 174
Loading ...GET OUT THE VOTE. The average pairing in Round 1 generated 154 votes. For Round 2, our goal is to DOUBLE the average vote total for all matchups compared to Round 1 … that’s 300+ votes! Use the share buttons below and mention the madness wherever you go so that these poems reach more kids!
