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The Ballad of Dew Moon by Elena de Roo/ Judge's Report

Judges Report - Elena de Roo

There were lots of wonderful lines in the poems this week. Some of my favourites were Caroline Moratti's, "Ripe with Nights gaze, the air is filled with plum ferment ..." and Allie Hawksworth's, "The shadows flitter, under the buzzing lamp."

It's really interesting how the character's name - Dew Moon - had such a big influence on the atmosphere and tone of the poems (mine included). I loved the sense of mystery in Liv Coulter and Livy Maher's poem with the four fingered soldier, and their lovely line, "city lights glitter while candle lights flicker," and the quiet mood of Joshua Chote's last lines, " Dew Moon sees an owl flying past. / He silently falls to sleep." In contrast it was also good to find a bit of grittiness in Matthew Illing's poem, where the lane was "Pitch black and evil / and full of garbage and graffiti," and the shadows were the focus rather than Dew Moon.

Most of you forgot that we were on Planet Fabo2 this week, so well done Kendra for including Moratti Mountains and Illing Lake in your poem, and I love your last line "MO HA HA HA the shadow replies."

Another common mistake was to put in something unrelated to the poem just because it rhymed. Rhyming can be fun to write and even more fun to read aloud, but if you decide to use it, don't let the rhyme lead the poem.

Poems don't have to rhyme; rhythm, alliteration and repetition can be just as effective. In Maddy's lines, "I hear the drops in the quiet of the night / I slowly creep, down, down, down ..." the repetition of the word "down" seems to mimic the sound of the drops. Also, I love Paige Grant's use of alliteration in the phrase "Dew Moon's deep, dark, feathers rise," and the fact that she uses it twice in her owl poem. Wesley Wang's poem uses a great combination of alliteration and onomatopoeia together with a strong rhythm, to create a real sense of movement - "A leopard pounces through the dark creepy jungle. / The tall trees swish through the dark creepy jungle."

Where the line breaks come in poems can make quite a difference to its meaning and effect. I like the way Joseph Ayoade broke his last sentence into two, emphasising the last line. Dew Moon goes back home. / With no food. I also liked the way Kate's (Waimataitai School) last lines echoed the first, and her nice use of contrast "The night is young and the moon is high."

Because poems are so condensed, every word counts - titles can be an important part of them, sometimes providing the clue to the whole poem, like in Annie Sun's poem "Midnight" or draw you in to read them, like Lucy Spence's "The drifting, creeping, scary, cat."

There were lots of great figures of speech too:
My favourite simile was William Taber's "The sun rises like a cake"
My favourite metaphor was Neve Cobham's "The night is black and smooth like a blanket ..."

Favourite endings: Caroline Moratti's "Hardly daring to whisper, / The darkness stares at itself in Natures Mirror, / and unfolds" and Booke Ellis's "Owls watching above looking for tea. / Rats hiding."

Favourite beginnings: Molly Marsden's, "The night was quiet / Elves making shadows / Stars watching silently" and Tupeni Valili's "Cold was the night as the sparkling stars gleamed in the dark blue sky ..."

But there can only be two winners and one special mention. I thought since there are really no rules in poetry I could get away with having a few extras. And they are ...

Dark Night - by Bruno McCall
The Night Shadows by Matilda Clack
Both of you wrote poems that worked well as a whole, but were different from each other. I liked the way Bruno had a great idea, and wasn't afraid to experiment with line breaks and play around with words and the way Matilda gave herself a challenge, by writing in a particular style and pulled it off.

Special Mention
Night - by Emma O'Shaungnessy
I loved the way you used the moon, to join together the image of the cat with the golden coat, and the little girl with popcorn!



The Ballad of Dew Moon

The stars were sulking silently, the moon, too, hid its light
when Dew went out to track the long-lost Chocolate Moose that night
She took her flash, new, camera phone, her cloak of coal-wing feather
pulled the hood around her face, and braved the bitter weather

Intent on finding signs of Moose, she never saw the creeping
of the shadows in the corners, or the darker-darkness, sweeping
And if she had, she would have said,
"A shadow? That's not right.
It must be more than what it seems, for shadows must have light."

The shadow-men had searched for years, on planets far and wide
looking for a the perfect match to be their King's new bride
and now, at last, they thought they'd found the perfect shadow maid
mistaking Dew, in black, at night, for some exotic shade.

And all the while, she never saw the darker-darkness sweeping
or the shadows that were growing, coming closer, nearer, creeping
but she must have had a premonition something wasn't right
for she shouted to the darker-darkness
"Come on out and fight!"

The moon came out. At last Dew saw the shadows all around
she knew then, as her forbears had, that she must hold her ground
She ditched the hood and shouted out
"I have a flash new phone
Step back or I will use the torch. My name is Dew Moon Jones!"

But the darkness only grew, and drew around her, slowly sweeping,
and the crowd of shadows circled, getting nearer, closer, creeping
She couldn't even see the keypad. Which one was the light?
In the end, Dew pressed the lot – the beam was blinding bright

Twelve LED's lit up her face. The crowd cried in surprise
She seemed so pale – a ghostly ghoul. No beauty, in their eyes
The tide of shadows turned away – how quickly it retreated
and Dew, the hero of the night, returned home, undefeated!

So if, at night, a darker sort of darkness comes a-creeping,
forget about that Chocolate Moose, just concentrate on sleeping

Science Fiction - Volcanoes, Craters and Melting Eyelids with Elena

"Science Fiction is the improbable made possible." Rod Serling

What a great lot of imaginative stories this week! Hot topics included, volcanoes, Neil Armstrong and twins. Most of you included all the setting and character elements set for the challenge, but keeping to the science fiction genre proved to be harder. Magical elements appeared in nearly all the stories, which meant they were more fantasy than science fiction.

There were lots of tasty beginnings, quite a few crunchy endings, but many of the plots went a little bit soggy in the middle and lost their way. It can help to have a brief outline of the plot in mind before you start writing.

Best beginnings: Callum's, "It was another ordinary day at school in the crater," Kendra Smith's attention grabbing, "Gulp! I Zeeblebarf just ate the mighty, monstrous, massive, monumental, mammoth sized super supreme ... bbbbuuuurrrrpppp ... ham ... buuuuurrrrpppp ... burger," with its great use of alliteration, and Claudia Weston's lovely "I can't get to sleep, it is utterly impossible with "the lights" flashing purple and orange against my window pane."

Best ending goes to Imogen Wiseman "My name is Zeeblebarf but my friends call me Zeebie. I am only 8 years old and my powers are so bizarre that I could turn you into a frog if I wanted to. If you don't mind I have to go now."

Best single image to Thomas Beckett, "The Professor's eyelids melted off like icecream on a cone on a hot day."

There were also some horribly (in a good way) inventive characters created. For instance, Thomas Coulter's flesh eating strawberry called Derrick, with his razor sharp teeth called cuttles, made a debut appearance, as did Zeeblebarf's friend, Potato, invented by William Laughton.

Dylan Rush and Felix Cameron's stories both made great use of the first person and were full of energy.

Jamie and Harriet, whose iced tea tasted like "squashed cheese with salt and boiling water poured over it," and Hannah Berry (who also had great character development) used the senses and detail to bring their stories to life.

But there can only be one winner ... or maybe two.

The winner of the intermediate category is Caroline Moratti. As a writer, one sure way of getting the audience on your side is to make them laugh. Caroline made great use of humour with her wonderfully funny parodies of Doctor Who, Star Wars and Star Trek characters.

The winner of the primary category is James Kerr. James' story was fast paced and energetic, with great sound effects. I also liked the clever use of time travel (and super powers) and the open ending.

Special mention also goes to Joshua Thompson and Matthew Illing for their superb stories.

The Great Blue Void

by Elena de Roo

Zeeblebarf took his last measurement - finally, his map was complete. As far back as he could remember, he knew he was destined to be a map maker. He had made it his life-long task, to complete a survey of the world, but in the end, it hadn't taken as long as he had thought. Here he was, still young, with his survey all but finished. Now what?

Next to him, the wall of the world sloped steeply upward, as far as he could see. How far it extended above the tangled canopy of the rain forest, was impossible to tell. But he did know, from his survey, that the jungle stretched unbroken in all directions. He also knew that the world was an almost perfect circle - if you followed the wall for long enough in one direction, eventually you would end up where you started from.

Once, he'd asked Beeblebarf, one of the elders of the tribe, what was beyond the wall? The great blue void, was his answer. He wouldn't say any more. After that, Zeeblebarf would occasionally catch a tiny glimpse of blue, through the leaves above. He had a hundred questions he wanted to ask, but it seemed he was the only one who was curious.

The others in his tribe thought he was odd, bizarre even. 'You have to understand, Zeeblebarf,' they'd say, 'that you're a new generation. You see things differently to us. You can put two and two together and make five hundred, but we only ever get four.'

They were twenty six, in total. The others carried out their assigned tasks - collecting rock samples, mining the earth for radioactive materials, maintaining the power packs. They never asked Why? or What if?

As he looked up at the steep wall, Zeeblebarf knew what his next task would be. The others were right - he was different. He couldn't live out his days not knowing what what lay beyond. But how to start?

He thought back to his years surveying the circumference. Had there been any part that looked climbable? As far as he recalled, it was equally steep all around. Then it came to him. The crevice ... that was it. That would be his way out.

It took him two weeks to find his way through the undergrowth, but this was something he was used to. The crevice was just as he remembered it - a jagged crack in the rocks about a metre wide, forcing its way upwards, like a bolt of lightning, towards the great blue void. He had no idea how far up it went, but there was only one way to find out.

He wedged himself between the two rock faces, and slowly and carefully, using opposing forces, see-sawed his way upwards, towards the unknown.

How long had he been climbing? He'd lost track of time. The view from the crevice was limited to a tiny slice outwards, upwards and below. The tree canopy must be far below him by now, but he didn't think about that. His vision was trained on the crack of blue far above, that was growing, ever so slowly, larger and closer.

It was many hours later, but at last Zeeblebarf crawled out of the crevice. The light was so bright here. The featureless earth looked faded, the space above glaring, over-exposed. He supposed it would take a while for his vision to adjust. Nearby, some large hairy creatures ate the tender green shoots which grew everywhere underfoot. Judging from their anatomy they would be very slow moving compared to the creatures in his world. So this was the great blue void. How flat and empty it looked.

A strange sound made the air around him vibrate. What did it mean? He couldn't understand. He tried signalling, but the sound just got louder and more shrill ...

***************

The boy and his father were moving their herd of hairy moonstock out of danger. Usually the cattle wouldn't venture this close to the crater, but an unusually dry year had driven them to eat the long grasses which grew near the edges.

'Dad, look!' shouted the boy, 'some kind of metally, stick insect thing's crawling out of the crater. It's got purple eyes. No, wait ... maybe they're not eyes ... they're flashing orange now.'

'What the ...? said his Dad. 'By golly ... I wonder ... I say, I never expected to see anything like this in real life. It looks just like the picture in The Classic Robots Manual. If I'm not mistaken, this one was the last of the Eebelbarf series. If you'd have come along to the Classic Robots Club with me last month like I asked, you'd know all this. Doctor Eebelbarf? Ring any bells? No?

'But Dad, it's getting away.' The boy sighed, he knew his father was unlikely to listen to him, once he'd got started on one of his long winded explanations, and he was right.

'He was famous back in his day. Because of the dangerous levels of radiation in the crater, he designed a series of robots to explore it instead. Twenty six, the good doctor made in total - one a year. A different model for every letter of the alphabet, from A-eeblebarf to Z-eeblebarf. But none of them ever returned. The Z model was the doctor's last hope - a new generation nanotech robot, with advanced, artificial intelligence, that could adapt to any terrain. Of course he's long dead now, but if only he could see what we're seeing now, son ... Hey, where's it gone?'

***************

Zeeblebarf rotated swiftly along the flat ground of the vast blue void, leaving the shrill noises far behind him. He had a survey to complete.