Poem Contest

Is anyone else finding it hard to score these great poems, I read one and think it's worth a high number and then I read the next and wonder if I scored the first one right, that is until I read the third one and then I begin to think I have no idea of how to score any of them. The writing is fantastic and with all 60 is is proving very difficult to get through all of them. Over all I know we have many poets among us.

I agree the standard of entries is very high indeed! I gave ALL my favourites (of which there were many) equally high scores... that to me was the fairest way!

If it matters to anyone I simply rate with my gut at the end of each piece. Did I like it and if so how much 1 to 10. Of course this method can be affected by outside sources such as have I eaten well or not, had a good day or the other kind, and have I been laid lately. Not scientific but who is around the LSF. Quality being something of a given on this site other factors can and will affect the outcome. Just think how differently you might rate a piece if Rick wasn't out there lobbying 26 hours a day; or if our beloved Pink Angel & blimp weren't mixing it up between bottles of the good stuff. Grin!

I too just score as I go along by my instinct and how much I enjoyed the poem...

There are some brilliant entries and a lot of talented people out there

I don't find it harder to rate than stories, but I suppose three factors influence my scoring: you could call them technical merit, artistic merit and personal liking. I've marked poems that show an understanding of metre, for example, much higher than those that don't. This is not merely a technical issue: if you don't understand rhythm or its importance, the line sounds clumsy when read, and poetry is an art of the SPOKEN word. Rules can be broken, but it helps hufely to understand the rules so you understand when breaking them is a good idea. Some writing is brilliant and evocative even if the subject doesn't much suit me (artistic merit). But I've awarded the highest marks when a poem has met the first two criteria and it hits the right spots for me personally. One that was OK on the first point and very good on the second but left me cold might get a 7.

Yes, I'm surprised at the quality and the quantity of the submissions. Great fun and, of course, none of these poems take ages to read.

I went through them all in a couple of days and gave them all "provisional" scores, and now I am reading them for a second time at more leisurely pace. In most cases I agree with my first assessment, but I see that there a few good ones that I missed the first time around, probably because I find it hard to read many poems with totally different moods and meters in a row. Sometimes I just cannot get rid of the rhythm of the previous poem....

Otherwise I think my approach is pretty close to what barretthunter describes. In principle I am willing to give full score to a poem that is brilliantly written and tells a good story, even if its isn't exactly my cup of tea, but fortunately there weren't any of that kind in the competition. I find that the hardest ones to score are those that are technically poor, but tells a good story in a funny way. As I found some that are good according to all barretthunter's three criteria, I am not going to complain too much...

I find it difficult because I don't know anything about poetry. But I have developed some criteria of my own.
1--meter. It has to trip right along. In music we call it playing "in the pocket". For the poem to grab me it has to cook rhythmically.
2--rhyme. I like for poems to rhyme. I know it's not technically necessary, but if they don't I'm sort of left scratching my head.
3--story. I like for it to tell me a story. I know some poems are "odes" or whatever, but for me, I want a narrative.
4--theme. It should be witty and clever. Spanking is not a serious subject. It is rude and bawdy, so I look for jokes and clever turns of phrase.

It's probably a good thing I'm only one voter.

All this "techie" stuff like "meter, rhyming etc' is ok for you folks who understand it but for me if it makes me laugh I vote higher for it, if it makes me sad I vote high, if it invokes little feeling then I give little votes.

Regardless I think everyone who submitted is a 10 in my books regardless of technical merit, or anything else, just as I am sure every writer in here feels the same about all the submissions

Like barrethunter, I find rhythm important - a poem gets 'sounded'; if the writer sets out to have a distinctive rhythm (not compulsory), they need to try and stay with it consistently. I also like ingenious rhymes, of which we have some hilarious examples in many of the entries.
I commend all the writers brave enough to submit entries, though, for their efforts whether brilliant or raw.

Meanwhile, with 10 days to go, let's see if we can't beat the 18,000 votes cast for the 500-word stories - an equivalent contest, with only 6 more entries and of similar length overall. Let us prove to the world just how robust a democracy the LSF truly is! Long live the Liberated Spankos Front!!** Forward to the Behind!

** Um .. that is what it stands for, isn't it?

I agree with both TEM and bh that rhythm is important - it is rhythm (not rhyme) that makes poetry poetry. If a distinctive rhythmic pattern (all that technical stuff with meter) is employed, it should then be followed. Even without a distinctive metrical pattern, a poem should have a cadence, which can be 'felt' when read out loud in the accented syllables (nothing technical hear - just those syllables you hear that are louder than the others). In such a form, there an be varying numbers of unaccented syllables in between, provided that you feel the cadence carrying it forward. A better poet will use that variation in a way that reinforces what he/she is saying.

As for rhyme, it is is one device (along with alliteration, metaphor, and others) that can be used to enhance a verse. As with meter, if a specific scheme is started, it should generally then be followed throughout. Rhyming lines, without any attention to rhythm, makes bad poetry, imho.


And here I thought it was a Februs-ocracy.


Ah, close enough. After all, it's only words.


A wonderful slogan!