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Beatitudes · Poetry Short Short ·
Organised by Anon Y Mous
Word limit 100–2000
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#1 ·
· on Sonnet for a Prodigal Son
This poem conveys an atheistic type of cynicism and lands straight between the eyes. Technically, the original Son knew his father's commandments (who is a stand-in for 'the Lord'); this is the weakness in this speaker's argument. In that sense, the tone errs toward something which might have been thought of by the humanistic Erasmus of Rotterdam.

The rhyme and rhythm are not strict, but the weight of the poem leans very much on its message and not its metricity.
#2 ·
· on A Ballade of Twitching Whiskers · >>Baal Bunny
Narratively, I'd like to see the people's reaction to the squirrels' rampage. It would have the makings of a mini-epic, a kind of skiourosmyomachy; besides, I'd hardly find it droll if I learned my neighbors were chewing up my wires, and I know a few folks who would get their bb guns ready.
#3 ·
· on Simple Inversion
Whereas Sonnet for a Prodigal Son seems to come from a place of personal reflection, this piece casts its grievances outward and even rings of a kind of puritanism. It may also be a bit of self-castigation; but one often sees a paradox with Reformists, that the moral standards of their creed are so high that, in practice, it is more pious to be a failure than it is to honor any aspiration toward rectitude.
#4 ·
· on Sonnet for a Prodigal Son
You've got the right syllable counts, but it's harder to tell since it doesn't maintain a meter. I hope you weren't trying for a meter, because if so, it's forced in beyond recognition. Rhymes are a bit loose in places.

This reminds me a bit of the old Simpsons episode where Bart joins up with a revival preacher, who tries to get Bart to behave, and Bart says he can always just do that right before he dies. The preacher thoughtfully says the deathbed confession is a pretty good angle.

I like the earnestness here. There's a nice plaintive quality.
#5 ·
· on Simple Inversion
Hm, it does what the title says it'll do, and it's interesting to see the follow-through on each. Though some sound derogatory while others sound complimentary, so I can't tell what tone it's taking. Or if it's trying to do both, it might need a tweak to make that explicitly clear. Cool idea as a concept piece.
#6 ·
· on A Ballade of Twitching Whiskers · >>Baal Bunny
I'm not sure whether this is serious about squirrels banding together to attack humans or tongue-in-cheek about how they often fry themselves on electrical lines. Either way, the rhyme and meter are constructed very well, the only minor thing being that "squirrel" can be heard as either one or two syllables. Might one of these squirrels possibly be a sorceress? :-)
#7 ·
· on A Ballade of Twitching Whiskers
>>Heavy_Mole
>>Pascoite

Thanks, folks!

The idea here is that squirrels--yeah, I prefer it as one syllable, but the dictionaries disagree--have been purposefully attacking power lines all this time--the phenomenon even has its own Wikipedia page! But we humans keep thinking it's accidental. Because that's how we humans think.

Mike