Round One: MMLP vs. Pent UP [OPEN FOR VOTES]

[Adonis]

Winter Topical II: Round One


SUMMARY OF RULES:

Verses are due JAN. 11th
MONDAY at 9 P.M. Pacific/West Coast or MONDAY 11:59 PM Eastern / 6:00 AM TUESDAY JAN. 12th Central European/London
There are NO extensions.

Verses MUST be a minimum 10 lines or a maximum of 48 lines (or 650 words).

Votes are due Thursday at 4:00 p.m. Western / or Thursday 7:00 PM Eastern / 1:00 AM Friday Central European/London Failure to vote will result in NEGATIVE VOTES if you advance to the next round.

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN? You can technically start a match down three votes by failing to log a single vote the previous week.

so....

All competitors must vote on THREE battles

Read the full rules here! (http://www.netcees.org/showthread.php?t=122320)

Topic:


http://i.imgur.com/xbv872T.jpg


Gluck

MMLP timeless

[MMLP]

Petr Cech

[Pent uP]

hi

Voted: argh
Witty
Pinot

[MMLP]

Once a little girl who lost her friend in the fight.
To a different world which was swept from her eyes
but the theft of a life had changed her views.
So in the festive of times the campaign ensues.
It was a major coup when meeting my friend,
two playful youths who’d flee from the rest
to eagerly spend the day from their cribs.
A mischievous jest who played up the pigs
with her grey coloured quiff she stood out of the brood.
The made other chicks go round up in groups
Whilst we'd scout in pursuit of parks in our path
but were not allowed to pursue the barn at the back
The barley would stand to attention and rise
we'd smartly adapt to whatever arrived
staying together despite the winters arid wind
our friendship would thrive with each passing trip
with each laughing fit, giggling in stacks of hay
but we’d have to split once dinner plates had came
the chips and gammon steak, an accustomed option.
In a blink I ate away thinking nothing of it.
Outside she's hunched and scoffing by the bays of hay,
it results in problems as her weight inflates.
As Dad proclaims “she has a matter of weeks,
Im sad to say she has a disease”

Too anxious to sleep in the dampness of night
when I happened to see some flashes of light.
In the back of my mind I knew it was wrong
but it gathered my eyes and soon I was off.
Confused as I was, my persistence had peaked.
I manoeuvred along without skipping a beat,
the pickets were breached and I reached the border
I shifted my feet to a scene of torture.
A secret slaughterhouse, loaded with chains
in disbelief when walking round after closing the gate
before I froze in dismay, just stared in shock
at the ocean of cages preparing stock
and there she was, caged, hunched up and stuck
her feathers chopped off whilst others were hung.
Just strung on a hook. I wavered in shock
as she mustered a cluck, I paced to her slot.
But fainted in horror before I made an approach
i'd awake to a doctor as tamely I spoke
with the faintest of hope I asked for my friend
As Mom breaks my resolve by shaking her head
the pain was immense and has never dropped from my conscious
a day to forget but I aint forgotten what blossomed
that wasn’t the problem, the problems, we've forgot!
I don’t wanna be honoured for being vegetarian, I’m just honoured being one!

[Pent uP]

Why The Caged Birdman Sings

Lonliness is an empty vessel
- because it floats better.
Without hope tethered or the sense to know whether
you could say ignorance leads a fresh batch of go-getters.
That is to say an empty home is unafraid of home wreckers.
Oppression is a vessel of friction
- unsettled condition.
One rug-burned knee touching down on the wrestlers victim.
Relentless and vicious
- a true king sleeps on the feathers of chickens...
And caged birdmen have been plucked into a steady diminish.

Anxiety is a means to oppress.
Those who have it avoid being direct.
Overworked nerves burst from the first pleas for respect
- every one after the fact keeps the body pleading for death.
Not a literal shut down, just a feeling expressed
as micro, or macro, and conceived in the flesh.
Internal turmoil makes the cold cage welcoming.
They could lock themselves in and still wont hate everything.
Interactions have a cycle of laugh, cry, rotate specimen
to create memories for a no-brained elephant.
The soul stays menacing
for better or worse, because most prey was a predator first.
The battle for survival is a bloodlust whos victory is met with a thirst.
Enough folks are cut-throat without being your own enemy,
but we're stuck with self deprecation conceding to known levity.
We're dreaming to show empathy because the feeling is so leveling
but when we open our mouth to speak; the speech is bellowed trembling.

Society riles up the anxious by nature.
Masked mouths chasing the paper -
While employers demand that we save
....conversations for later.
Silent looks are exchanged for a favor and texting is hailed as our savior.
The metaphor is simple - there's no assailant or hater

The cage is behavior.

[Cimmerian]

MMLP

Personal interpretation: This is a linear story about a farm girl who had a bird, presumably a chicken, as a pet. Her farmer parents take her friend away from her to be slaughtered. For the first time, the child discovers the slaughterhouse and her dead friend. She becomes a vegetarian.

Praise: It was an interesting take on the picture. I suppose the narrator is the girl in the cage empathizing with her avian friend. The story developed fine (with the exception I discuss in the section below).

Constructive Criticism: It was difficult to determine who the characters were in the story until you described that she was featherless. I had a suspicion when you used words like "brood" and "chicks." But for me, it was not clear. Birds don't have cribs, quiffs (maybe I'm wrong?), or giggles. The piece could have been strengthened with more descriptive clarification.

I got a little lost in some of the lines. I did not understand "played up the pigs."

"It was a major coup when meeting my friend." - I don't think "major coup" is the right descriptor here.

I felt the rhyming wavered at times.


Pent UP

Personal Interpretation: This piece consists of verses regarding
loneliness and anxiety. The piece is entitled Why the Caged Birdman Sings but does not appear to tackle the themes that Angelou (racism, rape, identity, etc.) or Iñárritu & co. (black humor, father/daughter relationship, mental health) cover in their works. It ends with a critique of society.

Praise: It flowed well. You undertook the symbolic approach of the picture that I would have taken.

Constructive Criticism: In some areas, I think you may have overly sacrificed content for flow. For example, "And caged birdmen have been plucked into a steady diminish." Diminish is a verb not a noun. I don't think it works here.


Overall: I enjoyed the approach and flow that Pent UP employed more than the linear storytelling that MMLP provided. So, I vote Pent UP.

Cimm.

[Adonis]

Pent uP 1-0

rise

[Soulstice]

MMLp - flow was real sick, the second stanza had sick imagery, but the first, i was really confused aside from a few lines. I think you could've cut this down by 12 lines or so. the ending was pretty funny. you know it had a personality, i didn't really connect to the story emotionally though. the imagery was fresh but i didn't care about the character once i realized she was a chicken.

pent - woah this was fresh. the message was very clear and each line constructed a new idea or developed an existing one in a different way, although the ending was so obvious it was unneccessary. i guess this is a credit to your clarity in this verse but i think you couldve went without it. the flow was the best this round. do you ever get rusty?

v/ pent - connected to it more and the mechanics were fresh. the pieces progression was top notch too

[PiE]

MMM.. The flow started off a little slow, but you pickd it up and by the middle it was flowing nicely with a good structure to the story and not bad on the character development, but the story could of used some imagery and exciting details of the the torture, her pain and other elements that you barely touched on within the details.


Pent.. Flow was on point throughout and you ran with a deep concept that came together with you ending. I was feeling that. Cage of behavior has imprisoned most of us if not all of us at one point in our life so its also very relatable. Your ending was what had me the most.

Vote Pent

[Witty]

MMLP: I liked this, I didn't know it was a chicken until the end lol and that's good to me because I use that device often, I like twists and this was a good one. You threw me off the scent pretty well but when I went back and read again some of the word choices you used to point towards the twist at the end were very skillfully and subtly placed. The flow was very good, your description of the friendship made it seem very real, as did the pain and torture of the ending, all in all a good piece which I enjoyed. Nice work man.

Pent Up - This was super slick man, smooth as silk to read, rhymes were impressive, and the subject matter, while nothing that hasn't been approached before, had your own signature touch to it. You wrote about an important issue within society, which can sometimes be difficult to do with sincerity without it becoming overly morbid or pretentious, but you pulled it off, the rhythm of the piece gave it a weird light hearted lilting feel to it which perhaps didn't blend great with the content, but nonetheless made it an effortless and enjoyable read.

I really enjoyed this battle, both wrote well and while they both approached the topic at very different angles, both succeeded in making enjoyable verses out of their concepts.


Close battle imo, but I'm going with Pent Up just for having the more polished verse. There was not much in it tbh.

[Frank]

MMLP

O.K. Respect for the straight forward approach. However, I feel as though you missed the ball here. Lots of Chicken idioms that could've been applied, such as Chicken Scratch, Chicken Shit, Headless Chicken. Your Verse did not taste like Chicken, even though that is what it all boiled down too. Big fan of your rhyme scheme cadence. Though you wavered here and there with syllable mismatching which affects the effect your after, it was predominantly progressive, even if the story wasn't always? if that makes sense. I would've done much more with this idea. I look forward to your week 1 AOWL battle. Kudos.

Pent uP

Solid. Respect for the metaphorical approach. I ultimately feel the verse could've been fleshed and streamlined a bit further for it to reach the standard in which you have set for yourself over the years. Tacking on a texting reference at the end of the verse downgraded the verse a couple notches, IMO. Couple cool flows but I didn't sense any real cohesion as far as the grand scheme of things is concerned. I am not a fan of preachy verses intended to push their agenda on the reader. Perhaps because I am Anti Establishement.
"Internal turmoil makes the cold cage welcoming" - stand out line summarized the verse for me

MVGT - Pent uP, far from self explanatory, close duel