Title: Oblivion Ring
Poet: RavenoftheBlack
Status: Public

This is for the voting week starting December 20, 2015.

This is another great one, Raven. Sad, but great.

I'm really reminded of one of the short stories in one of the super old Harper Collins M:tG anthologies, about all these people who had been summoned by planeswalkers to fight in a battle, and then were just left behind on this foreign world after their 'walker lost and sulked away without bothering to return them to their homes. That story sort of played up the black comedy of it, whereas here we're sort of facing the terror of being ripped through the aether and then trapped in exile a little more directly. It's a really powerful effect, and I really like the way you used the initial summoning and the 'walker duel as a framing device.

"Yea" from me!

this one doesn't really grab me. it's technically good, and it's certainly not problematic narratively, but nothing really stands out about it to me, you know? I'm not really sure how to describe it better than that. I don't have a problem with it in the archives, though, and I can't pinpoint what I'd like changed beyond "I want it to be more interesting" so I'm just gonna abstain I think.

one general note that I think may be contributing: it seems that the poems I read from you are almost always iambic and follow an ABAB rhyme scheme throughout. which is all fine, and maybe it's a sampling error on my part since I certainly haven't read all your poems, but maybe it'd be interesting to try some more complex forms sometimes? perhaps trisyllabic feet or a more involved rhyme scheme? even something like ABBA would be a nice change of pace. I don't know, like I said I haven't read everything you've done so it's pretty plausible that I've just missed stuff in other forms (you have another poem up right now that I haven't read yet so maybe even that breaks that mold.) but iambic pent/tetrameter winds up getting old fairly quickly I think, especially next to such a simple scheme. heck, maybe even iambic trimeter might be enough to make something stand out...

I like to explore the flavor effects of the MtG cards, as anyone who has read ADAF knows, but I find this poem a little lacking. The most likely reason is the little space given to the soldier's despair; there are three stanzas dedicated to setting the scene (when maybe two would be sufficient), four to the spell effects (again, I feel like this section could be reduced without gravely affecting the poem) and then just four lines for the trapped creature, which is supposed to be the focus of the piece. In my opinion the poem really suffers when compared with the lovely piece about the Mirror-Mad Phantasm, for example.

I'm not sure this would be an appropriate case to put a Not As Is, so I think I'll just abstain.