2009 Survivor Literotica Poetry Challenge: Planning & Plotting

[Angeline]

Lauren you rock. I am so in. and Angeline, you are so different from Eve as a poet that it's difficult to compare you. You are both among my favorite poets here.

I'm in if you're in bubeleh. It's a good idea for me to push myself to write these days. I seem to keep having these readings coming up.

Lauren is quite the little task master. Hehe. You'll see. She's also a really good poet. And Eve and I are like two sides of a coin, opposites. I'm the sweet one. She's the evil kinky one. Lol.

 

[Lauren Hynde]

What's the grand prize for this? Is it on a par with the story survivor contest?

Pfft. Poetry Survivor prize is much better than regular Survivor prize. Poetry Survivor gets 1) fun; 2) better; 3) and an as of now still unknown value in Amazon gift certificates in order to buy more books which will in turn bring said Poetry Survivor more of 1) and 2). The only thing regular Survivor gets is a wad of cash.

 

[Lauren Hynde]

Let me try to systematise some of the suggestions made:

- no time constraints; challenge starts on January 1st and ends on December 31st and you can write poems whenever between those two dates.

- for each free-verse poem, you need to write one form poem, from a list of pre-determined forms, and there should be no repetition of forms until you go through the whole list.

- there will be a trigger for each poem, be it free-verse or form; it can be a theme, a title, an expression, a list of keywords, etc., from a pre-determined list of triggers, and there should be no repetition of triggers until you go through the whole list.

- once a month, there is a special bonus round, a sub-challenge where every participant is asked to write a poem using the same form and trigger NOT on either of the lists*

- the objective of the game is to play the game; we can have a thread where we exchange feedback and discuss the poems that have been written for the challenge, but that won't have an influence in the scoring of Survivor.


* these bonus rounds could, if there's an interest in that, be kept anonymous at first, so that we have a voting by all participants and determine a score based on that; by the end of the year, there could be a prize for the poet with the best track record in the bonus rounds.

 

[Safe_Bet]

All of that sounds REALLY good to me. I especially like the "bonus" round concept because then the uber, super, mega great poets will be acknowledged for their skills, while the rest of us can still be competitive in the regular challenge.

I am also glad that the form requirements will be included because, though I DO agree with Liar on there being different types of prose, the different forms are more a part of "poetry". The forms DO need to be VERY well described and exampled so that everybody understands the requirements. They also need to be limited to the more standardized forms, especially if all must be completed prior to repeating a person's favorite form. (with a tip of my hat for example to Equinoxe who may feel very comfortable with a form from 12-century India that requires knowing Hindi, but the rest of us are screwed!)

One change I would ask to be considered would be the ratio of free verse to form. I would like to see at least a 2:1 ratio in favor of free verse instead of the suggested 1:1. I know there are plenty of Villanelle Vixens, Sonnet Studs and Sestina Sluts running around here, but EVERYBODY can write free verse (guess that's just me trying to be inclusive again )

Lastly, I would be willing to offer my help with tabulating and keeping score & statistics current. I have the time available (being a kept woman and all) so I am available if wanted.

 

[BOSTONFICTIONWRITER]

Oh, my God! Good golly Molly. Someone pinch me! Am I dreaming? Are you kidding me? Surely, you're not serious. I don't believe this. Can this be true? Is this, yet, another Survivor Contest albeit poetry instead of stories?

Where do I sign to participate? I have a few hundred poems to unleash (lol).

"Roses are red and violets are blue,
I can't wait to write poetry, too."

I know it needs some work but, hey, that was just off the top of my head.

Please add me to the list of contestants.

Oh, by the way, how much will I win, sorry, I mean will I win, if I win, for first place?

 

[champagne1982]

Oh, my God! Good golly Molly. Someone pinch me! Am I dreaming? Are you kidding me? Surely, you're not serious. I don't believe this. Can this be true? Is this, yet, another Survivor Contest albeit poetry instead of stories?

Where do I sign to participate? I have a few hundred poems to unleash (lol).

"Roses are red and violets are blue,
I can't wait to write poetry, too."

I know it needs some work but, hey, that was just off the top of my head.

Please add me to the list of contestants.

Oh, by the way, how much will I win, sorry, I mean will I win, if I win, for first place?

You do realize that quantity over quality is kind of poo poo'd at here? While you may get congratulations for the most poems you won't be lauded far and wide unless you have the most best ones that you can create. Writing a Lala Lala Lala Lala Lala Sonnet in G doesn't embrace good poetry, you know...

Welcome to the contest BFW.

 

[BOSTONFICTIONWRITER]

You do realize that quantity over quality is kind of poo poo'd at here? While you may get congratulations for the most poems you won't be lauded far and wide unless you have the most best ones that you can create. Writing a Lala Lala Lala Lala Lala Sonnet in G doesn't embrace good poetry, you know...

Welcome to the contest BFW.

So...first you slam me and then you welcome me?

Moreover, what makes you think that the stories that I have written in the Survivor Contest are not quality pieces and are not the best that I can write?

Are you that good of a writer that you can confidently remain so smug in your opinion of the writing abiltiy of others? Surely, being raised a Proper Bostonian, I wouldn't be as rude.

Moreover, good poetry as good stories are subjective. What you may like I may hate and vice versa.

Now...thank you for the welcome and I promise not to embarrass you...with my poetry.

 

[champagne1982]

So...first you slam me and then you welcome me?

Moreover, what makes you think that the stories that I have written in the Survivor Contest are not quality pieces and are not the best that I can write?

Are you that good of a writer that you can confidently remain so smug in your opinion of the writing abiltiy of others? Surely, being raised a Proper Bostonian, I wouldn't be as rude.

Moreover, good poetry as good stories are subjective. What you may like I may hate and vice versa.

Now...thank you for the welcome and I promise not to embarrass you...with my poetry.

You mentioned your few hundred to unleash, I was just riffin' ... r'lax.

sensitive poet. How do you handle solicited critique?

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

You mentioned your few hundred to unleash, I was just riffin' ... r'lax.

sensitive poet. How do you handle solicited critique?

You were a bit abrasive, carrie. Some folks are sensitive, particularly if they don't know your style of confrontation.

 

[BOSTONFICTIONWRITER]

You mentioned your few hundred to unleash, I was just riffin' ... r'lax.

sensitive poet. How do you handle solicited critique?

I was just kidding about dumping hundreds of poems. I'll be lucky to write 2 poems (lol).

 

[BOSTONFICTIONWRITER]

You were a bit abrasive, carrie. Some folks are sensitive, particularly if they don't know your style of confrontation.

Nah, I'm okay with it. I was only goofin' around.

 

[Tzara]

Let me try to systematise some of the suggestions made:

- no time constraints; challenge starts on January 1st and ends on December 31st and you can write poems whenever between those two dates.

As I said earlier, I like the idea of no time constraints. My free time varies, as I'm sure everyone's does, on work and life issues. So I appreciate flexibility in time constraints.

- for each free-verse poem, you need to write one form poem, from a list of pre-determined forms, and there should be no repetition of forms until you go through the whole list.

While I think the form requirement is important (and my response to Liar's comment would be that form has always been more important and more salient in poetry than in prose), I think that a 1:1 free verse-to-form ratio is perhaps overkill. How about one free verse poem to one form poem to one "poet's option" choice (which would be any damn thing the poet wants to write)? That way, people who prefer to write form can bias the contest to their strength, people who prefer vers libre can bias the contest to their strength, and I can write bad free verse or silly rhyming stuff at my fingertips' whim?

- there will be a trigger for each poem, be it free-verse or form; it can be a theme, a title, an expression, a list of keywords, etc., from a pre-determined list of triggers, and there should be no repetition of triggers until you go through the whole list.

It would be nice if some of these were "poet's choice" as well. While I like the challenge of writing to a theme or other kind of trigger, sometimes I'd like to just write whatever I might want.

- once a month, there is a special bonus round, a sub-challenge where every participant is asked to write a poem using the same form and trigger NOT on either of the lists*

Um, OK.

I'm certainly someone who feels well prepared to be a subchallenger.

- the objective of the game is to play the game; we can have a thread where we exchange feedback and discuss the poems that have been written for the challenge, but that won't have an influence in the scoring of Survivor.

Absolutely the objective is merely to play. Well, for me. Can't, of course, speak for others.

A discussion thread would be nice to single out poems that one particularly liked.

* these bonus rounds could, if there's an interest in that, be kept anonymous at first, so that we have a voting by all participants and determine a score based on that; by the end of the year, there could be a prize for the poet with the best track record in the bonus rounds.

Anonymity here is difficult to do, realistically. Most of us have fairly obvious styles, so we aren't really anonymous, other than in the sense that we all are, as we all write under handles.

I have no objection to this, though, if it does not influence the overall score. I really believe the overall score should be simply productivity.


General comments:

• The number of poems posted that satisfy the criteria should be the only measure for points. Anything else is subjective. Should "quality" matter? Of course. But that is a very different contest.
  
  The contest should be won by the person who writes the most qualifying poems, regardless of "quality."
  
  The rest of us are left free to sneer at the winner as incompetent, as is our right and solace.
  
• The forms selected should be ones that an objective observer can fairly easily determine whether a particular poem meets or does not meet the criteria for the form. This means forms based on rhyme patterns and metrical requirements—sonnet, villanelle, terzanelle, limerick, double dactyl, heroic couplet (probably should require minimum number of lines), quatrain (similar requirement), ghazal. Unfortunately, in east Asian forms like haiku, tanka, and senryu, conformance to form is more about thematic and stylistic points, which I think would be difficult to judge objectively. Just look at what regularly gets posted as "haiku." I would suggest forms which do not have objective metrical or rhyme requirements be treated as free verse or as "poet's option" poems as I describe above.
• Let's not get all bent out of shape before we even start—it's 'spose to be fun people!
  
  I really want to see BJ write a sonnet. Or Eve. Seen her terzanelles, so she should be good, but don't think I've seen her write a sonnet.
  
  So I'm curious.

 

[MungoParkIII]

Would poetry entered in the other survivor contest also be eligible here in the poetry survivor contest provided it meets all form, thematic or other requirements?

MPIII

 

[Liar]

To bitch a little more about forms...

So are content, meter and rhyme schemes (villanelles, sonnets, ghazals, limericks et al) the only types of forms we consider? Or can the form poem categories include other types of conventions and devices? Like alliteration, chiasms, eye rhymes, onoapoetics, anaphoras, and so on?

I don't mind half of the challenge being an obstacle course, as long as it's not the same obstable over and over. If we have classic rhyme-and-meter schemes A, B, C and D as separate categories, those are only minor variations of the same kind of challenge, and a solid concrete wall for anyone struggling with those kind of poems in general.

As long as it's only rhyme and meter, that is not me btw. A sonnet is not a big problem. However, a villanelle, or any other kind of "content gridlock" poem... <shudder>. Sure. One of those as a category is a challenge. But three, four, five variations of the same problem? I'd be screwed. Regally.

And is free verse then not really "free", but actually meaning forced non-structure? So that a poem that rhymes will be disqualified?

Am I over-complicating things? Sure, but I'd rather do it now instead of after the fact.

 

[champagne1982]

I agree with Tzed about the whole trigger aspect of the contest. I know that the Survivalists in the big contest have limits placed on them by Literotica's genre indices and the site's word count rules, but really to impose form requirements annnnd triggers beyond a list of 30 or 40 categories (there are 37 in Lit, including audio, illustrated and the four poetry slots) seems a little limiting.

And as to the 1:1 ratio for category to free verse, well, if you blended triggers with form into a single index then it would be reasonable to believe that the form poetry could be a "poet's choice" theme and the triggers would hold a similar "poet's choice" as to formula. Free verse is a formula in itself, as far as I'm concerned since sometimes people have just as much difficulty in writing those as others have writing to conform to set rules of scheme and metre.

I think we need to consider cross-genre poetry limits, where a person writes a sonnet to a trigger, for instance. I feel it's fair to say a poem like that would NOT be allowed to fill two slot requirements in Poetic Survivor, just as survivor won't accept serialized chapters posted outside of the Novels and Novellas category as entries in that slot.

Good morning, by the way.

 

[champagne1982]

I agree with Tzed about the whole trigger aspect of the contest. I know that the Survivalists in the big contest have limits placed on them by Literotica's genre indices and the site's word count rules, but really to impose form requirements annnnd triggers beyond a list of 30 or 40 categories (there are 37 in Lit, including audio, illustrated and the four poetry slots) seems a little limiting.

And as to the 1:1 ratio for category to free verse, well, if you blended triggers with form into a single index then it would be reasonable to believe that the form poetry could be a "poet's choice" theme and the triggers would hold a similar "poet's choice" as to formula. Free verse is a formula in itself, as far as I'm concerned since sometimes people have just as much difficulty in writing those as others have writing to conform to set rules of scheme and metre.

I think we need to consider cross-genre poetry limits, where a person writes a sonnet to a trigger, for instance. I feel it's fair to say a poem like that would NOT be allowed to fill two slot requirements in Poetic Survivor, just as survivor won't accept serialized chapters posted outside of the Novels and Novellas category as entries in that slot.

Good morning, by the way.

eta: Survivor's Immunity shouldn't be applied in this contest if we're permitted to post "Poet's Choice" entries, or if you'd really like to have immunity factored in, perhaps the winner of a monthly Sub-Survivor contest could win it. That way, there'd be 12 immunity winners and would make the sub-contests worth entering and writing for.

 

[Safe_Bet]

eta: Survivor's Immunity shouldn't be applied in this contest if we're permitted to post "Poet's Choice" entries, or if you'd really like to have immunity factored in, perhaps the winner of a monthly Sub-Survivor contest could win it. That way, there'd be 12 immunity winners and would make the sub-contests worth entering and writing for.

I would VERY much like to NOT have the immunity thing that Prose Survivor does. It just seems to unnecessarily complicate things and makes scoring that much more difficult (unless I am missing an intent or valid need here or sumthing)

 

[champagne1982]

I would VERY much like to NOT have the immunity thing that Prose Survivor does. It just seems to unnecessarily complicate things and makes scoring that much more difficult (unless I am missing an intent or valid need here or sumthing)

Well, the main contest was originally, loosely based on the TV show, I think, so winning immunity was a major part of that show. Since lottery numbers won't determine Poetic Survivor immunity but instead would be won through winning a separate (anonymous) challenge/contest, say, the whole thing isn't left up to chance but instead, through the voting of your peers. Plus, it would be limited to 12 (or how many sub-contests included) chances to win 1 immunity per challenge.

 

[Liar]

Aw shucks, let's just write a shitload of poems, awright?

 

[champagne1982]

Aw shucks, let's just write a shitload of poems, awright?

You can do that now without participating in a contest. However, making a contest requires thought and discussion of rules and the handling of potential problems.

 

[Lauren Hynde]

Besides, we still have a whole month before the thing begins.

 

[champagne1982]

Besides, we still have a whole month before the thing begins.

and I know I'm happiest nitpicking rather than actually doing any real work.

 

[Lauren Hynde]

My original idea was this: OK, I'm sitting down to write a poem for Poetry Survivor. I look at the list of forms, and I pick one - let's say it's the sonnet. Now I look at the list of triggers, and I pick "Poem's title is The Cat is Out". So, I write a sonnet called The Cat is Out. Then I decide to write some free-verse, and I look at the list of triggers and pick "Poem must include the words crystal and nuclear", so I write a free-verse poem about the Inaugural Ball (which somehow includes the words crystal and nuclear). Next, I look at the list of triggers and I see one that sounds like fun, "Poem must be based on a news report on CNN.com", so I look at the list of forms to see if there's anything that grab me, and end up writing a ballad about the life of the oldest woman in the world, who died a couple of days ago.

The idea of the triggers is to guarantee, in some way, that these poems are all being written now, this year, and that people aren't just going to go through their notebooks and post that one terzanelle they once wrote in high school. If we don't have these control triggers, or if we have too many "poet's choice" things, what's the point of the game? They can just write whatever they choose outside the scope of the challenge. The point here, I think, would be write in all themes or forms, not to skew the contest into those areas where each is better at. If anything, this should be an opportunity for each of us to try the areas we are not good at. Does that make sense?

My fingers are too cold.

 

[Safe_Bet]

My original idea was this: OK, I'm sitting down to write a poem for Poetry Survivor. I look at the list of forms, and I pick one - let's say it's the sonnet. Now I look at the list of triggers, and I pick "Poem's title is The Cat is Out". So, I write a sonnet called The Cat is Out. Then I decide to write some free-verse, and I look at the list of triggers and pick "Poem must include the words crystal and nuclear", so I write a free-verse poem about the Inaugural Ball (which somehow includes the words crystal and nuclear). Next, I look at the list of triggers and I see one that sounds like fun, "Poem must be based on a news report on CNN.com", so I look at the list of forms to see if there's anything that grab me, and end up writing a ballad about the life of the oldest woman in the world, who died a couple of days ago.

The idea of the triggers is to guarantee, in some way, that these poems are all being written now, this year, and that people aren't just going to go through their notebooks and post that one terzanelle they once wrote in high school. If we don't have these control triggers, or if we have too many "poet's choice" things, what's the point of the game? They can just write whatever they choose outside the scope of the challenge. The point here, I think, would be write in all themes or forms, not to skew the contest into those areas where each is better at. (

All of that makes perfect sense to me. It places logical limitations, but doesn't "stifle"

If anything, this should be an opportunity for each of us to try the areas we are not good at. Does that make sense?

Trying "areas we are not good at" is great and should be encouraged. We just need to make sure that we don't create any "can't"s. This will either take clear, concise and through explainations or "vague" ones while will allow flexibility (and are acknowledged as such).

My fingers are too cold.

Note to Lauren: Don't try typing in mittens. From personal experience I can tell you that it doesn't work very well.

 

[Tzara]

To bitch a little more about forms...

So are content, meter and rhyme schemes (villanelles, sonnets, ghazals, limericks et al) the only types of forms we consider? Or can the form poem categories include other types of conventions and devices? Like alliteration, chiasms, eye rhymes, onoapoetics, anaphoras, and so on?

The reason I suggest meter and rhyme scheme poems as the primary forms is that it allows for a reasonably objective judgment as to whether a poem satisfies the form or not. One cannot realistically defend an argument that a four line poem is somehow a sonnet, for example.

There are a few non-rhyme/meter forms that can easily be confirmed: Acrostic or Double Acrostic, for example, or syllabic verse. But many of them, for example the east Asian forms I mentioned earlier, depend too much on the judgment of "expert" observers as to whether a particular poem actually satisfies the form requirement or not.

I don't mind half of the challenge being an obstacle course, as long as it's not the same obstable over and over. If we have classic rhyme-and-meter schemes A, B, C and D as separate categories, those are only minor variations of the same kind of challenge, and a solid concrete wall for anyone struggling with those kind of poems in general.

As long as it's only rhyme and meter, that is not me btw. A sonnet is not a big problem. However, a villanelle, or any other kind of "content gridlock" poem... <shudder>. Sure. One of those as a category is a challenge. But three, four, five variations of the same problem? I'd be screwed. Regally.

And is free verse then not really "free", but actually meaning forced non-structure? So that a poem that rhymes will be disqualified?

Am I over-complicating things? Sure, but I'd rather do it now instead of after the fact.

I think you are over-complicating things, at least a bit, but it may be that you're over-concerned about trying to write good poems.

Take the sestina, for example. We're always hearing about how difficult they are to write, and I'm sure they are, if you're trying to write a good one. Turco indicates that they are "generally written in iambic pentameter" but other sources indicate no metrical requirement. Assuming the latter, you simply pick six words, put them in the proper locations, and fill in the blank with something. So long as you don't much care if it's a good poem or not, it should be pretty simple.

Now I'm not advocating that you sit down and try to write bad poems, but if you get caught up in a form that seems overly difficult, I'd say take your best shot at it and let it go.

Kind of like Karaoke for verse. Or something.