ROUND ONE: 2-panic vs. 15-kinkier

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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-panic
Alone after Dark
by Doraine Bennett

Breathless.
Heartbeat Races.
Stomach may Erupt.
Limbs shiver in Alarm.
Panic presses and terror Threatens.
Throat closes.  Eyes enlarge in Horror.
Stop! Curtail the turmoil. Create an Escape.
                                                                                                                                                        
                                                Breathe.

vs.

15-kinkier
Worst Best Friend
by Allan Wolf
 
I say my hair is kinky,
but my best friend says, “Mine’s kinkier!”
I say that I’m a thinker,
but my best friend says, “I’m thinkier!”
 
Don’t get me wrong; I’m glad that she
is such a special friend to me.
I only wish my best friend were
A little bit Best Friendier.

VOTE NOW!

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