Well, this is impressive. Pantoum form, but much longer than the standard. The only hiccup is the "She learned appeals—not to kings" lines that come up a syllable short. The story feels maybe a little drawn out with lots of exposition. I get the gist from the start that there's some civil unrest, and along with the title, some hints that cooking will tie in to that, but then there's a long stretch in the middle that doesn't mention the baking any, so it loses the thread of what it's about. Of course it's hard to write a rigorous form, period, much less while getting it to tell a story, so it's easy to say this, but maybe weave in the baking more regularly throughout to keep that connection going the whole way?

>>Pascoite

Thanks, Pasco:

How I always manage to miss one metrical glitch in these Writeoff poems, I'll never know, but this one's easily fixed at least. :)

Mike

If folks want to see:

The final version of this--thanks again, >>Pascoite--it's up on the Silver Blade website with a few alterations and a slight title change, "One Last Pie in the Face."

Mike

And now:

The revised version of this poem - which, again, now lives at https://www.silverblade.net/2024/09/one-last-pie-in-the-face/ - has been nominated to the preliminary ballot for this year's Rhysling Award, given out by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association. It's in the "long poem" category, so it's near the bottom of the list on their webpage, and it still has to make it through the panel of jurors to get onto the final ballot. So we shall see!

Mike