[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:
7-pimpled
Pimpled
by Linda Boyden
He whimpered, round, chocolate eyes pleading;
standing, soaked and shivery, in a puddle pimpled by the raging storm.
What could I do but carry him in and get us both warm?
vs.
10-pummeled
Putting Away Toys (Intended for ages 5-10)
by Debbie L.
Just one more toy to put away.
It will fit, all done today.
Oh no! There’s one toy more.
Squeezzzzze it in and push the door ,
Look, no more toys are on the floor.
Hello mommy, look, all clean.
The closet door? No you can’t see.
Ouch! All my toys just pummeled me!
VOTE NOW!
7-pimpled vs. 10-pummeled: Which Poem Did You Prefer?
- 7-pimpled (Linda Boyden) (47%, 108 Votes)
- 10-pummeled (Debbie L.) (53%, 121 Votes)
Total Voters: 229

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