ROUND ONE: 2-chapped vs. 15-misdemeanor

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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:

2-chapped
I Ran for the Chapstick
by Kenn Nesbitt

I ran for the Chapstick mom keeps in her purse.
My lips were so chapped that they couldn’t feel worse!
I dug through her handbag and pulled it out quickly,
then sighed in relief as I smeared it on thickly.
I felt so much better I almost rejoiced.
My painful, dry lips were now mended and moist.
My dad burst out laughing. My mom looked amused.
Her Chapstick was lost. That was lipstick I’d used.

vs.

15-misdemeanor
A Hot Dog Wiener Misdemeanor
by Penny Klostermann

I’ve been served a misdemeanor
Cuz my sister’s room is cleaner.
I can’t help her nose is keener…
I didn’t smell that hot dog wiener.
So…I tossed that hot dog wiener
‘Cross the hall where smell is keener.
I’m smiling now—my room is cleaner,
And sister has the misdemeanor.

VOTE NOW!

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