Poetry Slam

I challenge Pavlovianmodel146 to a poetry slam!

A poetry slam, for the uninitiated, is the cool version of open mic. This poetry slam will be a head-to-head, three round bout. To keep things lively, the three rounds will vary in style.

1.) Verse
2.) Haiku (5 7-9-7 Haikus)
3.) Freestyle Poetry

I’m open to any topic, but I think we should agree to a topic before hand. It will help to set the tone for the slam poetry-off. We should also decide if the poetry will be addressing the opponent’s works, or will be stand alone. I think judging should either be by popular opinion, or lots of judges, 5 or more.

What say you, Pavlovianmodel146?

Awesome, I accept your challenge.

I would make you aware that I am undefeated in Debate at this website. (Perfect 1-0 record…lol)

I also agree that we should suggest a topic beforehand. To make things fair, here is what I recommend for topic selection; you choose three potential topics and I will pick the one of those three that I like the best.

I think that the first poem should be an introduction to our own side we are defending. WITH NO PEEKING!!! The five haikus should all be short one-three liner rebuttals (You may quote from the introductions and then post the rebuttal haiku after the quote) And the final poem should be final rebuttals and conclusions.

I’m cool with five judges. I trust all of the regular members here to be impartial, so how about I pick two judges and you pick three?

I am not in any way nominating myself because frankly I don’t know dick about poetry, but you should think about selecting new members as your judges, if being partial is of any concern. The noobs don’t know either of you and won’t have any premeditated judgment.

Edit: for the record I am very interested in watching this thing play out…

Topic suggestions:
-Free Will
-The best kind of music
-Who loves the dancing banana more
If you don’t like any, offer three more and I’ll pick one.

What do you think about judges?

JUDGES: I still say you pick three and I will pick two. I’m going to ask Amor Fati and Rainey if they would be interested first. It’s a very tough decision because I also thought about asking The Underground Man, Arcturus Rising, Wonderer and a few others.

NOTE: I was joking about the partiality thing. Everyone here is impartial when it comes to the Debates, in my opinion, there is no question of partiality in my mind.

TOPIC:

Free will is a flat no thank you because the discussion never fails to branch into other realms that require their own Debates. It’s way too broad, it might be a worthy Debate if we agreed on positing a few things that should not be…positable. (I know positable is not a word)

The best kind of music is a subject worthy of Debate and is less serious than many other topics might be. Given the nature of the Debate, I think that it would be a fitting topic.

And I hate the Banana Dance.

I’m going to go with the best kind of music.

How specific are the genres we are going to be defending for best kind of music? I mean, would I be defending rock, for example, or 90’s rock?

i told pav i’d be happy to offer my input as a judge, provided he’s aware of my limited knowledge of poetry’s academic and technical specifics

he said he was okay with that, and so i hereby offer up my critical eye

I hate poetry, and I think poets are a bunch of intellectually lightweight and pretentiously esoteric fags. Wadda ya’ say?

That’s fantastic!!!

As we have discussed, I do not think the techniques of poetry will become an issue as both Carleas and myself have enough of a knowledge of poetry that we will be unlikely to make silly technical errors.

You know, verse poetry is mainly concerned with rhyme schemes, rhythms and meters. Basically, that’s just a fancy way of saying, “Make it sound good.”

Then 7-9-7 Haikus, well, the first and third lines should have seven syllables and the line in the middle should have nine syllables. The only way to screw up a haiku is to miscount your syllables.

Freestyle: It is what it is.

Essentially, verse poetry is the only kind that can really be messed up. But, when you decide to compose a verse poem, essentially you make all of your own rules for how the poem should flow. You only commit a technical mistake when you break your own rules.

All those judges sound great. I don’t lurk in the creative writing forum too often, but I’m in there enough to know that you’ve offered some giants.
xzc, I’d be inclined to take you too if you hadn’t used ‘fag’ as a derogatory term. Slam poetry, not people.

As for the topic, I think you can be as specific as you want to be. I’m thinking of praising-in-verse post-punk, emo, or non-gangsta rap (probably the latter, just because I know we disagree about it). If you’d say rock is the best, then write rock a sonnet. If you think only 90s rock is the best, ‘Cobain’ rhymes with ‘rain’, ‘pain’, ‘insane’, half-rhymes with ‘playin’'; you could write an epic about him.

I guess we just need judges to sign on. Amor Fati, can you flip a coin to see who will go first?

Everything sounds great.

I mean, I think that the 90’s brought us some really good music, but for every excellent mainstream band, three bands were crap. It is for that reason that I find it difficult to categorically defend any decade. The same goes for musical genres, except I am sure there is some garbage when it comes to non-gangster rap as well as there are certainly some excellent bands.

The question is, what is in radical opposition to rap? The first answer that comes to mind is country, which I also can’t stand, so I will defend the second answer that comes to mind, classic rock.

Rainey has declined to Judge as he simply has a lot of real-world stuff to do.

It is with great pleasure that I announce Oughtist as my second Judge.

Do you have any inkling as to who your three are, Carleas?

By fag i meant what eminem means. not necessarily a gay person…just a feminized overly sensitive person. I think I’m right about it, too. Most poets are fags.

Do I get a gavel? I want a gavel!

xzc, Mr. Shambles, will you be judges? xzc, because he defended his actions by reference to Eminem, a sure sign of good judgement. And Shambles because he knows as much about poetry as me, and he’s new so I know he’ll be fair.

Yes, I would also like to see XZC and Mr. Shambles as judges, that would still leave one more assuming the two of them agree.

I wouldn’t mind judging a poetry off/slam , but i think you guys should decide basic criteria to strive for which can be taken into account by the judges.

Critiquing poetry isn’t very celebrated, it can be like weighing apples against oranges… I have never had a hard time expressing my taste in the past though, and i think the results here will be interesting…

Twill be done to a turn I reckon’.

If Carleas reciprocates, I would like to have you as a judge.

Basically, I don’t think that there are going to be too many structural flaws in this poetry Debate between myself and Carleas. Essentially, I think that it may be judged as any Debate would be. I think that the whole poetry thing just makes for challenging formatting.

Pending confirmation here from Carleas, everything looks good.

But for heavens sake outline the debate formally!

I’m sure that Carleas will tend to that in the actual Debate thread, or in this thread. As this Debate was at the suggestion of Carleas, I am hesitant to attempt a formal outline without first consulting with Carleas.

I would like to reiterate that I’m not certain how qualified I am to judge this, but like Wonderer said if there are some basic criteria to go by I’d be happy to do my best to help out.

So, I humbly accept (just don’t judge my judgment too harshly!)