Round 2 Recap, Round 3 Underway + Ends Today!
Key stats and highlights from Round 2
This is our second — and due to time constraints, still ultra-abbreviated — Madness! Poetry round recap and next round preview. Only for “More” subscribers (that’s you!).
Round 2 featured another 16 excellent matches that, as must always happen in the end, reduced our pool of authletes by half again, from 32 to now 16. On average, we saw an uptick in the number of student votes cast per match in Round 2 vs. Round 1, which came as something of a relief, but to be honest student votes have still been significantly down vs. prior years. Again, please do share news of the event with the educators in your life so we can spark more students’ interest in and excitement about poetry!
And with that, let’s move on to the recap …
Round 2 Recap:
Key stats:
Total votes cast: 3,774 💪
Total comments made: 478 📣
Wackiest word prompt: Toss-up between “yeets” and “jejune” 🤯
FUN FACT: My 10yo son uses the word “yeeted” all the time in reference to throwing/bouncing stuff. I was not familiar with this word or its real-world use before I heard him start saying it. But once I understood how he was using it, and that all his classmates used it the same way, I knew it’d make a great Madness! prompt word. The resulting poems did not disappoint. (AFAIK, he has never used the word “jejune” … maybe next month?)
Closest match: The battle of “protruding” 🏁
49.1% Amelia Shearer vs.
50.9% Hannah Roy LaGrone
Biggest margin of victory: Jesse Anna Bornemann captured 81.0% of the vote with her adver-poem “Bob's Doggy Spa” 🚀
Biggest upsets: The above-mentioned Hannah (9 seed) and Jesse (8) both knocked out #1 seeded opponents; Mike Flowers (10) and Rebekah Hoeft (7) both took down #2 seed opponents; and Terri Cohlene (11) and Jean O’Connor (12) took out a #3 and #4 seed, respectively 😲
Round 3 Preview:
As with last time, it’s not much of a preview at this point since the round is already well underway and ends later today BUT it’s an exciting round nonetheless! This round’s entries are tremendous, in some cases to the point that voters have been delaying casting their votes until they come back and re-read both poems again, and/or expressing gratitude for this year’s new vote-splitting feature!
The Round 3 word list is:
indelible
deflection
felonious
fashionista
encased
marionette
gatekeeper
countrified
What would YOU do with one of these words?
Round 3 voting ends Friday 5/5 at 7pm EDT. If YOU haven’t voted yet, visit the match list (the matches at the top are in most need of votes) right now to read and vote for your favorite poems in each match! 🗳 x 8 = ❤️
See you next round …