Semi Finals: Richard Schwartz vs. Purple Puke - [Schwartz advances 5-0 ]

[Adonis]

THE SEMIFINALS

http://i.imgur.com/v82crFN.gif


Verses are due Saturday, August 23rd , 2:59 a.m. Eastern Time. Friday August 22nd. Western
No Extensions. No Exceptions.

Verses must be a minimum of 10 lines or a maximum of 48 lines or 650 words.

Votes are due Sunday, August 24th, 2:59 a.m. Eastern Time.

View other rules: HERE (http://netcees.co/showthread.php?t=84794)


TOPIC:

http://i.imgur.com/FFzvmk7.jpg
- The Great Chicago Fire of 1871.



Richard Schwartz Purple Puke

Good luck to both competitors.

[Purple Puke]

'



Toby was a homeless drunk, broken, cloths torn, down on his luck
Wondering the slums looking for liquor to line his stomach
The mayor of hobo town but to most he remained an enigma
Traipsing the streets, dragging his pride through the decomposed mixture
He was a prominent figure, the symbol of poverty in 1871
In the underbelly of a city of wealth, in which plenty had none
Until the 8th of October, for a change Toby was sober
contemplating the upcoming months, now the summer was over
His younger days in the distant past, each winter a struggling fight
Little be-known this night, would present a greater trouble in sight
Around 9 pm people witnessed the birth of a monster, signaled by smoke
Engulfing the scenery, masking the demon feasting on homes
Maturing to adulthood in a matter of minutes, wild & savage
With a dozen firemen flogging a dead horse with equipment that's damaged
An unstoppable challenge, looters appear through the chaos & panic
Crisscrossing the streets looking like madmen draped in torn fabric
Famished, the hunger of the fire gorges the slums like a kindling pie
& for desert the flames reach high, licking the sky
The city of Chicago was parched as this calamity feasted & wrecked
Until the morning of the 10th. the sky's had seen enough, opened up & wept
300 souls the total cost as the tears purged the flames
Chicago regressed back to a child, one third lying in remains
In the end a cow got the blame, but in secret you and me know better
For stood within the thousands of homeless people, was Toby, united together

[Richard Schwartz]

The Incendiary Crimes of the rogue Thomas Hinchcliffe

A swindler and a scamp was this winsome New England knave
A trickster and a tramp, wit as sharp as a glistening blade
Widows were his prey, this thief needn’t prowl the streets
He’d warm the hearts of lonely women with his foul deceits
Their neediness hid his greediness, his wanton and cruelty
He’d lay in their marriage bed, then abscond with their jewelry
He ran his callous gambit through every hub in our nation
From Biloxi to Salem, he’d make women love him, then hate him

In a Michigan harbor, our villain slipped in with the cargo
On a clipper stocked with liquor set for a shipyard in Chicago
Where his wistful bravado ensnared an unsuspecting dame
All bereft and in pain, the recently-widowed Tessa Tremaine
She was alit by vile Hinchcliffe, all puzzled by his puppetry
Felt guilt for her poor Wilt, but found comfort in his company
She lusted for him hungrily, indulging his salacity
Unbeknownst that his depravity would lead to her calamity
He crafted it happily – her riches, he’d abscond with them all
After she had taken this charlatan to the Congressman’s Ball
Hinchcliffe feigned illness, stricken by a fit of malaise
Said he should get on his way but strictly had insisted she stayed

He slipped into her home, reveling in his sickly boon
Til he saw the shadowy figure seated in the living room.

He spoke.

“Good evening, Thomas. I knew you’d never remember me
I’m the son of Loretta Hennessey from Memphis, Tennessee
My mother was an angel, but I’m sad to say she’s dead
May as well have laid to rest the day you made your way into her bed
She was a mess once you left, and I was met with squalor for it
A poor, dishonored orphan robbed of his father’s fortune
You’re an awful, morbid demon that must pay for your errors
So there’s no fate that’s fairer than to end your reign of terror”

He put a bullet in the chest of Hinchcliffe, the lousy knave
And without delay, lit a match and set the house ablaze

They say Thomas’ heart was coal, and his blood was gasoline
Thus the flames spread in a frenzy, such as no man has seen
An ungodly scene, the citizens watched their fair city succumb
As the fire burned for 38 hours…
One for every woman Hinchcliffe stole their innocence from

[Seymour BUTTS]

Purple puke, solid writing bro. Honestly can say I was impressed. My qualm is that it was too predictable. Lacked that creative flair readers hunger for. Would've beaten most but Rich is a beast.

Rich, I'm gonna have to say verse of the tournament so far. I like this even more than temp's and gas' bombs in round 2. Wording, pace, cadence and atmosphere were all superb. Story was crafted disgustingly and the names were bonkers too. Thomas hinchcliffe - forever emblazoned as a Dickensian character in the halls of alias topical legend.

V/ Richard Schwartz

[Adonis]

Puke wrote a solid verse, although I will say I did not fully fall in love with it. The opening bar in particular didn't hold a good enough rhyme to justify it as the OPENER"" per say. The verse from there quickly picked up in flow, but the story didn't pace as much as I would prefer. It progress, so I can't complain there, but it shifted, didn't flow IMO. I did however, really enjoy the character build up as this is a lost art. I felt a slight connection and understanding of this hobo. All in all, decent verse. Not elite but far from the opposite. Enjoyed the read, but didn't love it. This verse played somewhere in that middle ground.


Schwartz wrote a story tying the topic into the closer which was abnormal considering the other reads. I liked that twist, how you simply told a story and ended with the fire rather then making the fire the focal point. I liked the rhymes, you have a knack for using off rhymes or less common ones then most people. The vocab as always, original and to the point. The flow on the other hand, did have hiccups, but its hard to fault you for that when the word usage and placement are vital and rare yet effective enough to at least have a decent flow. Not say the entire verse' flow was just decent, rather just parts. In the end I felt a connection to the character, so you built a character, the same as your opponent but I felt you did one better in drawing in multiple characters and doing so also with a connection to the reader/


I'm voting

Richard

his verse was more complex in writing and I enjoyed his story and cadence a bit more. Close battle, but I got rich

[SlutMachine]

Purple Puke - Decent story, the way you displayed the story wasn't extremely engaging in my opinion but it wasn't bad either. It was very straight forward, easy to understand with some generic metaphores and some pretty cool lines like this one:

''Around 9 pm people witnessed the birth of a monster, signaled by smoke
Engulfing the scenery, masking the demon feasting on homes.
Maturing to adulthood in a matter of minutes, wild & savage
With a dozen firemen flogging a dead horse with equipment that's damaged ''
^ Thought this one was pretty cool.

This one as well was dope to me:
''The city of Chicago was parched as this calamity feasted & wrecked
Until the morning of the 10th. the sky's had seen enough, opened up & wept.''

Overall a pretty decent story about the drunken fuck up named Toby. Poor guy, this probably wont help on his alcoholism, or it'll open his eyes. Hope it's the last one. Cool shit.

Richard Schwartz - Thomas Hinchliffe, some sociopathic lil bugger, aint he? Great story, enjoyed the story. Thought the story you made which eventually led him to lit the house on fire and cause the dramatic event were pretty cool. Got an insight into the madmans life and instead of making it about the fire itself you created a colorful character to go with it with the fire as the climax to the story. Pretty cool.

Vote - Richard Schwartz. Although Purple Puke had a pretty cool verse but the story itself lacked that extra spice to make me really engage in it. There were definite highlights here and there for me in Purple's verse, but overall Richard Schwartz had a better showing in terms of a more well rounded verse with a more in depth story about a developed character named Thomas Hinchcliffe. Pretty cool battle.

[Certain]

OK, it turns out I have time to vote on at least this battle. I'd already read the verses twice and now went through and read them again. Before I start with my breakdowns, I want to say that both of you did excellent jobs with a tough topic. You also wrote similar verses, in that you created your own folkloric versions of how the fire started. (The actual firestarter remains a mystery, my research shows. That helps your cases here.) Anyway, enough of that.

Purple Puke: Your class warfare angle resonated, but I wish you had done a bit more to develop the actual struggle that led to that finish. I liked the way it closed, though the language in the final line was a bit imprecise (in that you could have used "uniting them together" or something like that rather than saying Toby himself was united together). Your storytelling, as expected, was smooth, crisp and at times eloquent. I really liked the smoke monster metaphor that you used throughout the latter half of your verse. It was simple but made the verse much more vivid. You had to know you'd be outrhymed here, but a little more effort on that end would have been appreciated. There were almost no internal or multiple-syllable rhymes at all. The flow relied solely on the diction, which is a tough way to attack a refined rhymer such as Richard Schwartz. But I really liked the content here. Had you invested a bit more time in writing, by committing more space to the social aspect and by enhancing your rhyme scheme and cleaning up a few awkward spots, you could have had a truly special verse.

Richard Schwartz: At least once a verse, you have a couplet where the rhyming wows me. In this case, it was the second stanza's opening couplet. But that aside, the thing I loved about this story was how deeply you put yourself into the timeframe, with word choice and city references and plot decisions and everything else. You made me feel like I was being told this story in 1871, which was very cool. It reminded me of some of the faux-old-time stuff from How I Met Your Mother, though you didn't do much to lighten the mood. Instead you created a rather clever but simple plot. I'm not sure I'm convinced about the decision to light the house of another poor widow on fire. That seemed a bit much to me. But I liked the line about the hour for every widow. I'd say my biggest complaint about this verse has to be the very last line, which, similar to Purple Puke, felt worded incorrectly. Leaving your reader with a strong final word can create a resonant tone, and "from" came across as clumsy. Still, you told an excellent story and did it well. This verse was fun but also grim. And it felt of its time and real. Purple Puke probably had the content depth to beat you, but he didn't tell his story as well in any way.

Vote: Richard Schwartz

[oats]

Puke: This was a good verse. The storytelling, the angle, all of it was good. I tend to lend myself towards stronger rhyming, but that's usually not a deal breaker for me. It's hard to critique this tbh, but something was missing for me. There was a zing that was noticeably absent, the part that makes me remember the verse after I read it. I've read through it several times now, and nothing is bad at all, even mediocre, but nothing stands out to wow me either. Does that make sense? Idk, I'm having a hard time pinpointing it, it just felt a little bland as far as stories go. It was technically great, but there was a soul missing that makes a verse truly memorable. Two things come to mind. First, if it was told in a more immediate sense of action instead of the birds eye of it all, it would have made it more personal and have greater impact/appeal to my emotions. Second, there was a reference to the fire turning people into madmen with torn clothes - I pictured Toby looking similar. I think this could have had a strong statement about humanity and how these types of disasters equalize things, if only momentarily. I think that's what you tried for with the ending, but it didn't quite connect with me. Overall, this was a dope verse for many reasons, but it could have been more imo.

Schwartz: this was dope storytelling. the atmosphere of the victorian age was alive and well, from people's names to the verbiage used. I especially loved how the fire was peripheral to the story here, the end product of the characters' actions instead of a central character itself. no qualms, this was an excellent display of creative, effective storytelling.


Vote: Schwartz.