Week 1 - Coup vs Pancakebrah - FINISHED VOTING PERIOD TIED 4-4

[Mike Wrecka]

Greetings competitors, we will begin with a small technical rather than conceptual challenge. DOUBLE LETTER WEEK, include instances of the double letter string you are given as your Specific Task. E.g., you are given G.S. – include word variants of G.S.: golden shower, grape soda, going slowly, google search etc. Note there are no required amounts, you can write as many double letter variants as you like or as little as you like. You don’t have to rhyme with each double letter phrase, or put it at the start like an acrostic poem, just include instances of it, it also doesn’t have to be the focus. You can write about anything you like.

Your specific task - S.D.

Due Wednesday Midnight WST

Good Luck Coup PancakeBrah

[Coup]

check

[PancakeBrah]

http://fc01.deviantart.net/fs27/i/2008/077/a/6/stellar_nostalgia_by_chickenwar.jpg

Sand dunes to salt deposits. Unable to process logic,
just these sodium diamonds, for which he's called nostalgic.
The newest batch of kin, boundless energy masked by a bashful grin,
is out this Saturday, left to bask in the splashes' din.
Mid-Summer day, soaking deep within the sun's display
Subsiding dull hunger pangs for just one more run of waves.
Son's deranged, straight diving in shallow depths,
out of breath, pretending to charge Poseidon's hallowed steps.
Skipping rocks, adjusting how his wrist is locked,
He swears with one more try he'll reach those shipping docks.
"I'm the King of the Beach!" he yells, fighting off the coming of night.
Shit, dude. No one can tell him he's not right.

[Coup]

South Detroit: A city in the grips of a Empire reaching
It's fleeced so deep by a void so deceiving it's unceasing
Squeezed down into submission by the greedy seizing
What's left is the hallow echo of yesterday's wallow
Silently dissolved into such dainty, empty, shadows
Entire neighborhoods shut down as the fallout follows
The gritty streets depict what the formulas predicted
Sullen dreams, a sedated city calculated in cobwebs
The reality is born unto us all with our mercantile smiles
Only in our pride we raise this monster in mud and mire
And looking on are our Masters drinking lighting in bottles
Pleased at the progress, thanking charts on the models
They are surly drunk off their own fornication no doubt
A redolence of scotch lingers as they take occasion now
Sitting pretty above ghettos in high rise vocation homes
They know how to manipulate the ends that need shape...
While the people plead in cages tolerating this great rape

But,

Below Masters shallow dawn, sits danger so dirty
A Detroit born woman goes up to visit Master early
A young whore she is, she climbs up the stairs at thirty
Her womb is very barren and she's surly hungry. Very.
Searching for a vein first... she injects then knocks...
Summoned for another gut pounding day on the job
They go into her while she's spitting broken glass
Across the box spring shot down holding her ass
She fingers a razor blade out of her tissue
She slices deep and seems dazed but continues
The Master falls as she bleeds the joker
Another day, another dollar...tomorrow star over
South Detroit, a city in the grips of a people dying
An Empire trying to be the pride of thug life rising
Fleeced so deep by a memory of yesterday's wallow
Today a rich man's sorrow is now a poor girls bravado




http://i41.tinypic.com/awp0e0.jpg

[Adonis]

Quick vote, read them so figure might as well.

A complete verse, verses a short, well writen but extremely abrupt ending. I got Coup easily. I will say if there was more I could see Pancake taking the cake, pun intended. There was some good wording a very nice rhyme scheme, but awfully short. Coup had a vivd story, not as vivid as it could be, but still I saw the junky whore for who she is.

V/coup

[zygote]

Good pictures to both competitors, enjoyed Pancakebrah's language it meshed well with the carefree picture. E.g., the bashful grin section. Coup presented a more bleak outlook, and the tone was fitting for the image, however it was a bit one-dimensional compared to Pancakebrah's. Thought PB worked well on both a nostalgic level as well as a free spirited writing tone. While Coup's language meshed with the themes of his story, the distanced narration did not compare favorably to PB's reflective writing. Voting Pancakebrah.

[Mike Wrecka]

wow I enjoyed this battle. two very good verses. I feel like both of you really took the tasks to its limits. Ive read some pieces that didn't use the initials very much but you guys used them on occasion multiple times in a single line. which was impressive since it never seemed really forced.

pancakebrah-- very nice verse here. the flow was strong. I enjoyed how it was abstract but still possessed vivid imagery. and it captured emotion. haven't read much of your stuff but its obvious your a top contender.

coup- man you have made huge strides since the last few pieces ive read from you. the flow of your piece wasn't as strong as I would have liked. but you did tell an entertaining and rather complete tale and used the two letters quite well. a good showing. it was gritty.

overall- I was just more impressed with pb's technical firepower and emotion and use of memorable phrases that he created more than coups narrative. good battle guys. two good verses but

vote- pancake

[Split]

I liked both.

Pancake accentuated his use of the topic well, perhaps a short/ sweet approach favored him. He didnt have to step far outside his comfort zone. Cool little vignette.

Coup. enjoyed the tone and relevance. Some good uses of the topic, some rather boring. "So deep"x2 for example. Very cool descriptions that are uniquely you. Interesting division of verses. I feel like you were going to put in a revelation or twist, and just kept on the same path. Some dope conceptual work and a fe more choice SD plays would've nabbed this for you

V/ PCB. Enjoyed how the mood, use of topic and mechanics meshed a lot better.

[Spoken]

Quick vote I'm on mobile


Both hit hard with the task and I believe by far the best battle as both really did well and I am just angry I have to choose a winner caus I honestly feel both did so well with the task and the fluidness and the overall flare to verses were gret. I have both doing they're thing and really setting a standard/tone for the rest of the weeks left in the league to beware of. It all came down to whose verse I really took in and enjoyed foremost and I have to say the shortness of PCB... I think was mint and well put together but in a sense I wanted more into it overall... But dope shit and how you pact your verse just enough to stand strong to a more detaile and longer verse compared. Coup played more lines in and really took advantage of detail and really just placing such nice strides thru out his whole verse but sometimes I felt it to be a little overzealous just slightly tho... So my vote comes down to enjoyment and I just got Coup for really seizing the imagery as the story did well in building a description and valid thought process into the mind.

Great match both really enjoyed both reads

[dead man]

pancake - i think your first two lines and your last two were my favorite. i think salt deposits / sodium diamonds were beautiful methods of twisting the challenge into juxtaposed imagery. this was a childlike wondrous snapshot into summertime. thanks.

coup - ill be honest, i was not partial to your first section merely as an opening description. we, well, most americans on here, know how fucked up detroit is, especially recently with their city-wide bankruptcy and industrial decay. its a sad story to be sure, but not one that i find particularly interesting to read about. then, your second verse became much more focused around a particular event, or character - this woman trapped in her own survival mechanisms

The Master falls as she bleeds the joker
Another day, another dollar...tomorrow start over

heavy.


i was almost intent on giving this one to the brah, but i think coup actually had a much more profound effect on me with his second half than cake with his short snippet of nostalgia. although i really enjoyed both and was overjoyed to see cakes actually show up.

v/ coup.


thanks folks.

[Certain]

PancakeBrah: Your writing is very crisp. You had a lot of very nice phrases that worked well in the context of the rhymes and challenge. There's no doubt your length hurt you, not because Coup dropped a longer verse but because there were so many details left unfleshed. We get the sense this beach bum has a long history but never get any sense of what that history might be. Why does he want to be king of the beach? Why won't he succeed?

Coup: Your verse was twice as long, but it strained to fill those 32 lines. The first half was too vague. You went with all metaphors instead of mixing in more concrete images, which left that part feeling both overly familiar and vague. The second half was an improvement. Specificity adds an emotional pull, and your second verse had that with lines about the box spring and the razor blade and climbing the stairs. The wording also was a little smoother. In the first stanza, there was a real disconnect, as though each line were written independently and meant to stand independently. A more complex rhyme scheme or more carryover concepts could help smooth that out. You had good thoughts to provide about the value of the dollar. I'm not sure the South Detroit angle was maximized because of the vague images instead of clearer snapshots of the places and people you were discussing. But the point was effective and hammered home by a strong second half.

Vote: Coup.

[Pent uP]

Clusterfuck i tell you

Pan - The wording and the writers voice were phenomenal. The lines had an effortless finesse to them while the imagery still felt child like. The shipping docks couplet was a perfect example of how you kept "in voice" for this. I love verses that aim to show a positive experience or pastime and its emotional value. The only thing I felt that held this verse back was that it was so short. It leaves me with the impression that while more could've been observed about the situation - you only had so much for it.

Coup -- I liked the first half more then the second. To me the second half came off as....well...undersold I guess is the best way I can describe it. I understand what you were going for - delving into the scene you had set previously by giving specific examples and really making it feel more personal, more empathetic, more relatable. I just think that it was done in poor taste..I dunno. I thought that even though the first stanza was enough for the topic and should've been separate from the second one altogether. If there was more to the story then I think the first stanza could work as a panorama-during-opening-credits-like technique while the actual work was about the story of this building or woman or "thug family" but thats a different idea, approach, etc that you verse inspired in my head. '

Overall -- I liked both of these for different reasons. I felt that Coup tried to do too much with his and didnt really focus on what he did good long enough. I felt like Cake had a phenomenal start to something but it didnt get to where it should've. Overall though I feel that Pan had the better work.