Round 1: 6. Soulstice vs. 11. Objective \\ Soulstice wins 5-0

[Certain]

Welcome to Round 1!

The Basics

Check-ins are required by Monday, Aug. 25 at 11:59 p.m. PT. If you don't check in, you will be replaced.

Verses are due Thursday, Aug. 28 at 11:59 p.m. PT. THERE ARE NO EXTENSIONS

Votes are due Sunday, Aug. 31 at 11:59 p.m. PT.

Four votes are required from each competitor. For each missing vote, one vote will be deducted. Post proof of voting here.

Verses may not exceed 10 lines. If the length of a writer's lines is called into question, the standard will be 15 words per line, and verses of more than 150 words will be disqualified or required to be shortened.

Standard writing and voting rules are in effect. No biting. No recycling. Votes must be explained. No editing verses after the first vote or the verses deadline. Any other issues will be resolved using Art of Writing League Season 3 rules as the basis.


Topic


My Way Home


Good luck, @Soulstice and @Objective.

[Soulstice]

My Way Home

The sign will read "102 miles to Beaumont" - She'll turn up the music
As recursive confusion turns you to some invertebrate eunuch
Driving to uncertain conclusions - "You didn't need to do that back there"
Then she'll muss your matte-black hair - you'll make a conservative crooning
That means "Well we have to keep running - and why spare bullets?"
But she's unaware, full of thought when she says this songs means something
Between the strange kudzu trees you two thieves will keep running
She'll say that songs take you back to moments, "Have you heard this before?"
Against the future's ominous blur, you recall a time past. Perfect and pure.
You'll say "It's been a while" - but you won't be talking to her

[Objective]

The dark forces of human nature keeps me awake,
I need sleep. Pretty please; just give me a break!
It's nothin' but fake, yet I sweat for the shit that I take,
let it get to me so I can regret the decisions I make.
The terms and conditions are made as reality fade,
sharp as a blade is the games that's warped to be played.
The charlatan crusade is deceiving and giving me pain,
I'M BELIEVING YOUR WORDS, I'M NOT THAT FUCKING INSANE.
It's sucking my spirit from its remains - (It's my hollow tip dome.)
Fuck it, I'll let it swallow me whole. *Asleep now* Yes, I'm finally home!

[Split]

Soulstice. A nice, highly developed 10-line verse. Didn't like the repetition of "keep running" a line or two apart. That just felt sloppy, given your abilties. While the vocab was great, some of the adjectives seemed lofty & to overextended for my tastes- "conservative crooning", "recursive confusion", and "invertebrate eunuch" all felt unusual and mismatched. Too stylized. Like if I texted u 'how was your day' and you said 'obsequiously sedentary- if you catch my drift' but I wouldnt catch your drift nomsayin?

It didn't heavily take away from your verse, it just seemed out of place & forced when usually your writing is very contained and smooth. It's hard to do a lot with only 10 lines.

Kudzu trees was awesome, haven't seen that before and it practically set the scene for you in one short phrase. Varied vocab & good flow to everything.

Interesting idea you touched upon, how the same music can make us feel nostalgic for very different things. "My way home" is like a way of saying that your narrator feels disharmonious with his partner in crime. She looks for reassurance and gets none, as your narrator is lost in thought. He's possibly thinking about how she went overboard in the showdown you allude to ("you didn't have to do that back there" "why spare bullets") but the narrative frame of two thieves on the run in a foreign land felt askew & misplaced as you described the nuances of nostalgia. It was like, MI:3 if the real focus of the film was teenage angst & the characters went through deep personal revelations in the middle of chase scenes.

I'M PROBABLY NITPICKING TOO MUCH. Your verse had good aspects but didn't quite pull together for me.




Objective. Good aspects but unsatisfying overall. I didn't like your figurative language, it was mostly misses for me and they tended to muddle the picture more than clarify it- like "charlatan crusade" and "sharp as a blade is games thats warped to be played".

The opener caught my attention, but your writing wasn't very descriptive because the metaphors and comparisons didn't connect at all.

I liked your interpretation of the topic. "Terms and conditions" was a fresh concept that developed your tone.

Good battle, but I feel Objective was overpowered by Soulstice here. I found Soulstice's verse to be solid, but distorted in a very specific way. Objective's verse didn't deliver on a mroe basic level.


Good battle.

Had Soulstice.

[Darth Yoda]

ha ha dayum. these ten line pieces are insane because they really encapsulate what a writer wants to say moreso than a 500 page essay. it really does, because the moment you capture what they're talking about - that's it! but soulstice was really clever here. objective did quite alright as well! kudzu trees are sort of a *thing* of mine. the adjectives were almost a bit excessive, but i guessss you can say more is better than none. objective showed up, but it felt branded. i dont feel it never left a part of the ground. im going with soulstice. cool stuff

[Cormier]

Soulstice- I like the amount that you were able to do with just the 10 lines. i feel like you gave us a very complete story that actually contained some nice imagery and characterization of your two Bonnie and Clyde type characters. i think the rhyming and flow was fine, my only problem with the writing is that there were some instances where the wording was superfluous for the same of a forced slant rhyme. the conservative crooning and invertebrate eunuch phrases didn't sit well with me

Objective- rhyming and flow was smooth, but some wording issues. the whole "sharp as a blade" line is horribly put together for the sake of rhyming. i think you have a good start or section of a topical, but as a complete piece itself it's lacking some clarity and direction for me.

Vote= Soulstice

[PancakeBrah]

Soulstice:

Dope. Recursive confusion was a bit off to me but invertebrate eunuch was good description. I liked your approach to the topic and your flow/rhyming may have been the best of all the verses I've read. The way you wrote reminded me of Split Eight's verse. Not mechanically but in the imagery and feeling it imparted. Also, car with girl. So similar. This was nice because you really felt the nostalgiac tone you were actually writing about through the piece itself. Very good stuff.

Objective:

Not bad. I think your style is more suited for longer, more epic style pieces. You wrote decently and your approach to the topic was fine. Nothing stood out, to me, though. The schemes were all pretty standard and you didn't have those conceptual lines that made me think or go 'damn'. Some of your wording was off, especially with this line;

"sharp as a blade is the games that's warped to be played."

Just clunky. I think you would have been well served to refine your piece a little bit and add some degree of difficulty.

Not a bad battle. I think Soulstice won pretty handily, though, taking this one on all fronts. Thanks for the read.

v/Soulstice

[NYCSPITZ]

to obj u my nigga and I liked this for what it was. cool little piece, you have a unique tone. Needed more depth to it. Had the surface quality of being appealing but the tone was more adaptable for a longer verse imo. soulstice had more depth. Cool rhyming. Nice little compact verse that i enjoyed.

mvgt soulstice