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You Cannot Force a Willing Mind · Poetry Minific ·
Organised by Anon Y Mous
Word limit 15–1000
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The Now Matters
Editing, censoring and removal
Perfectly acceptable works of art yesterday
Are not here today because of someone's disapproval

This metal saw of pruning has surely gone too far
The edits and cuts to the works shear them away
Slowly but steadily the axe is diminishing who we are

Art exists because it can and not because it must
The expressions laid out are of not who we were
But of what we will become to adjust

To forces of objectionable slurs
You may make the changes and accept the fate
Or defy the pull to spit in the faces of curs
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#1 ·
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This one's a bit of a headscratcher.

First, what is it? There's a consistent rhyme scheme in each stanza, so I don't think it's intended to be free verse. On the other hand, rhyming poetry pretty much always goes with some kind of meter, but I struggle to see any rhythmic unity at all here -- neither within a stanza between the two rhyming lines, nor between lines in different stanzas. If there's any pattern to the number of stresses in each line, or the number of syllables in each line, or the distribution of syllables between stresses, I've been unable to notice it. Perhaps I'm just deaf to poetry.

Second, how does this relate to the prompt? With the other entries one can at least imagine a possible train of thought leading from the prompt to the end result. This one seems to come from nowhere.

The author's message sounds heartfelt, that much can be said for it. Readers who already agree with the sentiment might appreciate the violent metaphors in the second stanza, but from a poetry point of view they don't go anywhere. All they do is to hammer home how strongly the author feels what he/she is saying; they don't inform or enlighten any of what follows. Stanza 3 pulls out and away and attempts some cool, abstract philosophical reasoning, but immediately stanza 4 gives up on that and descends to end with an angry scream of defiance.

On the other hand, other readers who don't already agree that something "has surely gone too far" can easily take one glance at the poem and dismiss the whole as a plea for the right to publish all sorts of reactionary drivel and not even face disagreement. That's the cost of being so nonspecific that each reader is left to fill in the blanks with their own preconceptions. Nobody ends up learning anything they didn't already believe.
#2 ·
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I guess the prompt tie is that an artist can't force a consumer to see their vision? I don't know. I can get behind the message that censorship hurts art, and that it's fine for art to exist for art's sake, though this seems to go beyond that and say it's the consumer's responsibility to appreciate art, which is a pretty extremist attitude. Yes, art that panders to public tastes will be more successful, and it's somewhat of a shame that a talented artist who doesn't may never be successful, but it's not like they're owed something just by the fact they're producers of art, either. It could almost be seen as parody by someone who doesn't feel that way, so it strikes me as one of those pieces that both sides of an issue can claim as supportive of their position.

Structurally, there's no meter, and the simple rhyme scheme works fine. I'd caution that the middle lines of the first two stanzas rhyme, so it initially seems to set up an additional piece of the rhyme pattern that it doesn't follow through on.
#3 · 1
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As people rise and fall away
And newer fashions seize the day
We cannot see what ages past
Had picked or shunned, to rot or last.

In seeking veins not overtapped,
Life is too short. But art adapts.
#4 ·
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Out of all the submissions this one's speaker seemed to feel the most strongly about their opinions. But they also seemed more interested in being loud than in being convincing.

To me this felt like a "censorship sucks" graffiti - for some reason in poem form.

Which is surprising, now that I'm writing this. Because it's really not. It does have arguments like "censorship makes valuable works disappear" and "limiting our expressions today limits what kind of people we will grow into", I just didn't realize it had them. They're not particularly convincing arguments since they're so unspecific, but they are there. My attention just slipped right over them.

Maybe I was too busy wondering about why this was presented as a poem. I half expected it to get meta and talk about how people usually expect some kind of rhythm in poetry.