Dead Poem's Society, Week Two, Contest and Community Building

in poetry •  7 years ago  (edited)

A Dead Poem Society Production

600px-Jacques-Louis_David_-_Marat_assassinated_-_Google_Art_Project_2 (1).jpg

Image attribution

After a week a steemit post is a dead man bobbing in the blockchain. Could be the finest blog ever written but there is no rewarding it. And it is not even a week; it is six and half days. I learnt recently that in the last 12 hours before pay out, a post cannot receive a monetary upvote. Another bloggers here has come up with a bit of a remedy to this situation. @whatamidoing hosts the the deadposts initiative. He invites steemians to enter posts from the past and maybe receive some rewards. Here is his latest deadpost contest. There is still time for you to enter.

Along this vein, I would like to host a more specific contest. I am inviting all steemian poets to drop the link to an old poem below and the . I could never choose a winner and so I won't; you will, but I will read them and upvote as many comments as I can.

Here are the rules.

  • Upvote and re-esteem this post. The higher the turnout, the bigger the payout for the winners and the more people who will see and maybe upvote your comment.
  • The post must be at least a week old, but the older the better.
  • Depending on turnout, vote for 1-3 other entries in the comment section. Do NOT upvote the original post. That is a wasted vote. Upvote the comment here.
  • I will choose from among the poems that received the most votes and best quality comments and gave the best comments and did their diligent best to upvote 1-3 other entries.
  • Poems only, all forms of poetry welcomed.
  • Don't vote for yourself
  • The number of winners will be linked to the size of the payout. The bigger the payout, the more poems I can and will reward. This initiative is about strengthening the poetry community on steemit. But there will be at least a first place poem that receives the largest share of the payout, and then perhaps a second place, the second biggest payout and a so on.
  • Winner/winners and maybe participants, depending on the size of the payout, will receive the SBD from this post.

Last week the first prize of 1.1 SBD went to @xplore and a second prize of 0.5 SBD went to @dabeckster. I was really pleased with the amount of interaction on last weeks contest and the remainder of ~ 2.6 SBD went out to the other participants that posted a deadpost and did their diligent best to comment and vote on other people. Hopefully you all have also received or will receive some author rewards on your comments.

The following people all received 0.1 SBD
@figuringoutsrn
@sunravelme
@satorid ( I goofed and you received 0.2, lucky duck:)
@zeleiracordero
@momzillanc
@diebitch
@kilbride
@old-guys-photos
@rensoul
@creationofcare

So a scroll through your old poems and decide which poems you want to resurrect and then drop the link below. Good luck to you all.

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I sent you and Steembasic Income share as a thank you :) thanks for the great contest/gathering <3

Until every cage is seaside and vacant
libertad is a loaded gun
blank-faced
with a shifting placement

Some strong penning, Kilbride. What is a steembasic income?

@steembasicincome check it out, its like a community owned group and you can buy yourself and another a share . It gives you an upvote on everything you post (maybe there's a limit per person- I would hope actually) I found out about it through Freewrite group and decided to start giving them as thank you's

Cool ... I will keep a look out for the upvotes and then maybe pay it forward. A big thank you, kilbride:)

"Lace me up one more stitch"
Let me have one more hit

In a mist of confusion
I find clarity of society
In a rage of bliss
I find comfort in humanity

Please takes notes
As I take tokes
Of marijuana smoke =D

x)

Well penned. The well-turned phrase, “libertad is a loaded gun,” especially jumped out to me. “Libertad” or “liberty” has always been a threat to those who would force power and privilege over others.

  ·  7 years ago (edited)

Yes agreed. And thank you xo "The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion." Albert Camus

That, all day <3

Hi, @kilbride. From the picture your poem is loaded with both pop culture and religiosity. Reading this piece has been an inyeresting opinion for me; I'll tell you why:

  • The pic is an oxymoron. We need guidance = we ARE the guidance (fist). And is loaded both with divine devotion and human guts.

  • Idem for the text. "Wrong side - one more stitch - loaded gun" and "libertad" build their own extended oxymoron to produce a dialectic effect between violence and the sublime.

It reminds me of universal paradoxes like the Latin adage Si vis pacem, para bellum (If you want peace, prepare for war).

Thanks for sharing this here. I enjoyed it.

Thank you , I appreciate your thoughts. Although preparing for war is the worst part of being free. We aren't really free if we are dictated by constant struggle . Really bums me out to be honest :(

Indeed, @kilbride. Freedom is an illusion, a sweet one.

My humble submission is this historical poem, about Alexander the so-called “Great” – entitled Ra’qedyet. The post includes my spoken word delivery, from SoundCloud https://steemit.com/alexanderthegreat/@momzillanc/ra-qedyet

First off, you're a boss for being able to pronounce all of those names so fluidly! And yes, I always think about how stupid humans are. We fight, and burn the libraries/art of the conquered; we have to keep reinventing the wheel . And even though we now have volumes of examples of how "we" (the pupils of the history writers) didn't realize how advanced such and such a civilization was and are now just rediscovering evidence blah blah blah, we STILL talk about other cultures with the same disdain as ol' Alex had for Barbarians . Its ridiculously frustrating haha

I completely agree with your sentiments on this issue.

I remember this ... it is wonderful:)

Thanks, Pryde

I liked your poem, @momzillanc.

One can tell the speaker is against canonic historical knowledge, and this reiteration is ironic, for he/she knows the answer already:

Tell me about it…Tell me more…
Tell me… tell me… tell me, please

Historians have always been quite subjective and often have responded to interests of third parties and powerful rulers, to name some. What would it be like to be told the real history? I guess we can only write fictions about it and speculate (which is rather interesting if you ask me).

I guess that’s why they say “the winners write the history books.” But, the real history cannot ever be completely erased. The earth itself will – sooner or later – reveal forgotten truths. Eventually, in the face of all the mendacious “winners” try to obfuscate, “The truth will out.”

Yay! Deadpoets society. Ok for this week entry, I am submitting a spoken word poem, that did a video for, so i hope you enjoy some Unconscious Tapeloop Blues
"because,
I burn deeply for those connections
I work hard for those connections

breaking open my mind
trying to find the source code
mental programs running out of control"

https://steemit.com/poetry/@satorid/ibke3sw5

For some reason dtube never loads for me. and my comp is great , we game on it all this time... I don't get it ...

  ·  7 years ago (edited)

Booo i was afraid of this, but heres a youtube like, dam dtube

dope, well done! Made me think of this "Looking on various street corners
I'm sure you've seen it yourself
Standing on the corner, is an alleged brother
Dressed in blue or green, red and black
And, spouting the news, that the revolution is coming
And you better get ready, sort of like
The end of the world is coming, unfortunately
The world is just gonna get dragged on and on"

sorry dude, we are all here for infinity lol

Dtube does not always work for me either but it did tonight. Fantastic work, Daniel:)

Nice, yeah i been hearing this with dtube. But I'll keep posting and singing my unconscious tapeloop blues until they work it out =D

"breaking open my mind
trying to find the source code
mental programs running out of control”

The dichotomy of modern life isn’t so different than it’s always been, eh? We can compare it to programming and tech development, but we’ve always been struggling to figure out that “source code” of our own minds.

yup

indeed, same kind of different, only updating and shuffling words =D

Hi, people.

I enjoy writing about children (and for children).

Here you are, one for the ladies:

                                  "A Child's Sketch".

Thank you for doing this, @prydefoltz.

So, I am going to be completely honest, because I feel like from your comments you are a pretty straightforward person also. I did not follow the meaning , I caught a few bits and the language was descriptive and surreal, but I couldn't grasp what it was getting too- and my spanish is far to infantile to comprehend the note you put on it . It might be partly due to your comment about enjoying to write about and for children that primed me for a light happy reading . I'm guessing you have a higher IQ than I and I am just not able to follow ;)

Nothing to do with IQs XD

I appreciate your sincerity. I guess it's a bit confusing that there aren't clear cut conclusions but some wandering through memories and abstract reflections.

I loved your poem, btw, @kilbride

The question is what gives a poem staying power ... wordplay can indeed help a poem standout but there needs to be an energetic sense of authenticity that allows a poem to endure.

And that is certainly difficult to achieve, @pridefoltz. Also it's something the reader must be able to identify in most of your work, something that defines you (and that they get to like).

I was shocked to see that I won. That was my very first contest to win since I joined steemit and it made me so happy that my first piece did the magic.. I really enjoyed the dead poem contest and the interaction amongst great writers. It was truly amazing, thank you..

We welcome you again this week:)

Congratulations! ☻