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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:
5-sterile
Murphy’s Law
By Tiffany Strelitz Haber
Sterile Merrill’s happy. Sterile Merrill’s clean.
Sterile Merrill’s wearing gloves to read her magazine.
Sterile Merrill’s hungry. Sterile Merrill eats.
Sterile Merrill boils all her favorite snacktime treats.
Sterile Merrill’s thirsty. Boy, she loves to drink!
Whoops, she spilled the water from her shiny bathroom sink.
She falls into the toilet, after slipping on the floor.
Sterile Merrill’s not so very sterile anymore.
vs.
4-smothered
The Gig that Made Me Famous
By Kathy Ellen Davis
One day I was searching (I like to stay working!), when a wanted ad caught my eye.
“Must be small, can be green, must be round, must be clean, the weak-hearted need not apply.”
It was easy to see, this was perfect for me: my email was soon on its way.
Just an hour passed by, then I got this reply: “You got it! We’ll be by today!”
When I got to the job, my head started to throb; I didn’t think it’d be this tight.
I was cramped and covered, all squished and smothered, by mattresses all through the night.
When the morning light came, so did fortune and fame; my eye hurt but I was set free!
And that’s the true story, in all of its glory: “The Princess and the black-eyed pea.”
5-sterile vs. 4-smothered: Which Poem Did You Prefer?
- 5-sterile (Tiffany Strelitz Haber) (58%, 133 Votes)
- 4-smothered (Kathy Ellen Davis) (42%, 98 Votes)
Total Voters: 231
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