ROUND TWO: 5-accelerate vs. 13-deconstruct

^{[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:

5-accelerate
ACCELERATE
by April Halprin Wayland

Accelerate!  That’s what the world is shouting.
Rush down the street!  Pay no attention to that cat in the alley!
Rush through your book!  Skip that big word that means yummy.

I won’t, though.

I’m going to decelerate. I’m going to breathe.
I’m going to watch that cat swat at a leaf spinning in the wind.
I’m going to stretch out on the grass with my book.
 
I’m going to savor / every / scrumptious / word.

vs.

13-deconstruct
The Wild Beast
by Quinette Cook

PO

In class today we’re analyzing poems. We’re ripping them apart.

My teacher says hunt for the wild beast inside. Hear it’s roaring heart!

ET

So, I deconstruct and dismantle mine, dissecting every word.

Wait! My poem’s NOT about a lion, but a little hummingbird.

RY

VOTE NOW!

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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!