[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:
9-exclusive
For the Birds
by Suz Blackaby
A crowning kingdom in a tree
Is home to denizens den-free,
An exclusive nesting site
Located at a dizzy height.
Though sundry cups and hollowed holes
May house frogs, bats, rats, mice, or voles,
Birds dominate the panoply
Of creatures in the canopy.
Bough to bough they frisk and bounce,
Tip and stipple, hop and pounce,
Launch and circle, soar and wheel,
Chirp and chitter, perch and peal—
The daily celebration
Of a flighty population.
vs.
6-probe
Blue Sky Butterfly
by Kathryn Apel
Butterfly flutters
in summer breeze,
vivid colour dancing
on whispering wind…
it hovers
then wafts feather-light
upon daisy-dream petals.
Wings cinquième en haut
it stalks the bloom
unfurls proboscis
to probe pollen puffs…
savours the bouquet,
sipping sweet nectar
through a straw.
* Please note spelling ‘errors’ are Australian spelling.
VOTE NOW!
9-exclusive vs. 6-probe: Which Poem Did You Prefer?
- 9-exclusive (Suz Blackaby) (60%, 168 Votes)
- 6-probe (Kathryn Apel) (40%, 111 Votes)
Total Voters: 278
Loading ...GET OUT THE VOTE. The average pairing in Round 1 generated 154 votes. The average pairing in Round 2 generated 178 votes. The average pairing in Round 3 generated 224 votes. A nice trend! Use the share buttons below and mention the madness wherever you go so that these poems reach more kids! And remember, encourage voting on EVERY MATCHUP, not just this one!
