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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 124 previous Madness! 2012 poems and voting results are visible from the Live Scoreboard page.
Here are the poems:
*bovine
BATTLE ROYAL
by Stephen W. Cahill
Bovine balloons were lined up in platoons
Defending Inflatable Land.
They made up an army, a little bit barmy,
With battles appallingly planned.
Their number one foe were giraffes made of snow,
All equally lacking in sense.
They climbed to the top of a hill where they stopped,
Declaring “Let battle commence!”
With hair dryer Uzis and mini Jacuzzis
The cows tried to melt their tall foe.
But soon they were faced, from all over the place,
With a porcupine catapult show!
The cows started popping, giraffes started flopping,
The make-believe armies near dead,
When a hand from above, in a little blue glove,
Picked up a balloon and he said,
“Moo-cow, you’re the winner! But now, it’s my dinner.”
And so, the balloon must depart.
Its tail is undone and it sails to the sun,
Straight up in the air with a fart!
vs.
*impecunious
Tale of a Not Overly Dramatic Broke Kid
by Debbie LaCroix
To be without a penny,
Is to be without a dime.
To be without a quarter,
Is the most horriblest cruel crime.
Impecunious as a pauper.
Broke as a street bound bum.
All I want is a dollar
To go and have some fun.
The video game isn’t that expensive
I’m not exaggerating at all.
But if I can’t find me some money
I think I’m gonna bawl!
Fine, what can I do to earn it?
What if I clean my room?
Then will you give me some money?
OK, where is that broom?
Better than a penny,
And better than a dime,
Better than a quarter
Is money that is mine.
VOTING CLOSED. IT’S OVER!
*bovine vs. *impecunious: Which Poem Did You Prefer?
- *bovine (Stephen W. Cahill) (53%, 360 Votes)
- *impecunious (Debbie LaCroix) (47%, 315 Votes)
Total Voters: 675
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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.
The average pairing in Round 4 generated 354 votes.
The average pairing in Round 5 generated 605 votes.
Don’t break the trend now!
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