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| random thoughts about poetry critique netskyIam 1 Oct 08 10:39PM | Thread Closed |
Merely my ideas and opinions. These are free and worthless or whatever.
=most poets, almost all, are supremely sensitive to hurt
=most internet board poets are earnestly hoping for praise. They have made something of themselves, from themselves, and want support, more than cruel cuts.
=most internet poetry is dreadful by any standards of the kinds of poets who have been published repeatedly in reputable journals
=most internet poets have, apparently, never read "great" or "good" poetry.
=most young people feel so intensely and have such an irresistible need to let it all hang out
=most of what they hang out has been washed over by millions of humans past and present, and so the "tough" critic worries: shall I tell them the truth, that their soul-spillings are of no appeal to anybody but themselves, much less than of interest to "experienced" poets and poetry readers?
=applying a FRANK critique to a bad poem risks ire put back onto the signed-in critic. I always critique and post signed in.
=I never want to hurt an erstwhile poet, particularly a young and tender beauty who only NEEDS to be understood and respected.
=often I fail to give a substantial crit because I don't feel qualified to critique some better poems, for they are above me, or beyond my mode of viewing the poet's internal world turned out for all to see.
=I make many errors when I crit. I try to soften the blow by reminding that I am NOT criticizing the poet, but only the poem-effort.
OK. That's me. What are your random or specific thoughts about poetry critique?
?
Reid
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| re: random thoughts about poetry critique netskyIam 1 Oct 08 11:48PM | Thread Closed |
Not about critique: It is three thirty AM here in Miami.
Around the world is daylight and wakeful people, most gainfully employed.
I can write or muse here at any hour. Some virtual friend from some real part of the world will react, maybe just to say "shut up".
But I am heard and so is s/he.
As you note, I am in a good mood and full of want to touch a soul.
My Ernie dislikes that I spend my life now in a folding chair,
and he's not well and has been badly used by me. And I'm a fool for trapping him.
And so I write at night, safe from sunlight's bad affects upon my skin and errant system. And city lights have drowned the stars, which once, when I was a sailor long ago, glowed so brilliant in the sky, yet were never any cliche at all.
The moon is all that's left for me, brave enough to show its face above the light-polluted Miami sky. It's late for me yet early in my "day". And I am so happy
because I get to see John next week and I will, 1994, make a good show for a good man, two men, in fact. Poor Ernie, stuck with me. Poor, poor, little nothing-now me.
Yet I am not sorry for myself at all, ever! I could've been born in Uganda and dead at three months age. Instead I roll along in words that count for nothing, though in number, but not luminosity, these words out-count the stars above the most azure of the midnights' open seas.
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| re: random thoughts about poetry critique 1994 2 Oct 08 7:13AM | Thread Closed |
> Yet I am not sorry for myself at all, ever! I could've been born in
> Uganda and dead at three months age. Instead I roll along in words
> that count for nothing, though in number, but not luminosity, these
> words out-count the stars above the most azure of the midnights' open
> seas.
this is why
I admire you.
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| re: random thoughts about poetry critique Mongrol 2 Oct 08 7:18AM | Thread Closed |
and why he is worth the read ;)
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| re: random thoughts about poetry critique unknown 2 Oct 08 7:25AM | Thread Closed |
i agree netsky that many poets are sensitive to harsh critique, and as human beings our goal should not be to make them feel bad. however, i do think that if the goal is to learn then there needs to be some frankness and honesty going around.
i don't think there are just two polar opposites though: the joey method vs. the spare the feelings method. we can combine the benefits of both approaches and come up with a critique style that is less likely to make the writer feel bad, but at the same time attempts to point out what needs to be improved.
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| re: random thoughts about poetry critique 1994 2 Oct 08 7:25AM | Thread Closed |
absolutely.
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| re: random thoughts about poetry critique netskyIam 2 Oct 08 8:24AM | Thread Closed |
my little journal entry (post two) was just a draft, in the mood, thinking of an old love, and unrelated to reality, and has nothing to do with crit styles. Some might say, "oh, but it's romantic and sad" and others will say (if it were a prose-ish poem for crit):: what a lot of diary stuff who cares and azure seas and full of soap. And they'd be right:
Poetry can't be "critted" on so many counts because so much of it is written from heart for one other heart, yet presented as if it should appeal to the world, which it will NOT do.
Kindly friends here will say, "I admire your honesty." And I say, thanks, I stand by my works. But strangers, the real word of six billion, can't and should not give a flying flip off: not worth their time to read.
The attempt then, is only to make a soapy monologue =read in beautiful-enough form, for which purpose the monologue/letter is now up as a "poem", to be refined and made more pretty. I only like the trag, so trag aspect and the last line, like old-school romantic speaking, of one swain toward another, who will never read this after all because I doubt that I should/would even put it onto him.
Thanks. Now, what other thought have you all about the "value" of poetry crits?
=Grammar, poetic license properly used, spelling, abstention from purely-for-effect formatting if at all possible, for then it's not about message so much as, ex:
A
bird flew
bluer than
my thoughts of losing it as I have lost
a sight of you.
----
(bleh!
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| re: random thoughts about poetry critique joey 2 Oct 08 8:28AM | Thread Closed |
they're taking the risk here of having their poetry read by other poets. a lot of people come here in frustration at other sites -- sites where it's only allowed to say nice things about an author but not talk about the author being the creator of the piece -- as though poetry didn't really need an 'author'. one of the worst sites is one sponsored by some diamond sellers in jersey -- where it's pretty obvious that they're baiting the 'romantic poetry lover' into the site so that they can sell engagement rings.
the poet is better than the critic, and the poet can talk the critic into making sense, or the poet's no poet at all. i mean that, we know what we've written, just not how we wrote it. and that's the point of a critical poetry site... that it's not about 'improving your poem' at all. it's about finding yourself as a poet by talking with other poets.
> i agree netsky that many poets are sensitive to harsh critique, and as
> human beings our goal should not be to make them feel bad. however, i
> do think that if the goal is to learn then there needs to be some
> frankness and honesty going around.
>
> i don't think there are just two polar opposites though: the joey
> method vs. the spare the feelings method. we can combine the benefits
> of both approaches and come up with a critique style that is less
> likely to make the writer feel bad, but at the same time attempts to
> point out what needs to be improved.
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| re: random thoughts about poetry critique netskyIam 2 Oct 08 8:43AM | Thread Closed |
"the poet is better than the critic, and the poet can talk the critic into making sense, or the poet's no poet at all. i mean that, we know what we've written, just not how we wrote it. and that's the point of a critical poetry site... that it's not about 'improving your poem' at all.it's about finding yourself as a poet by talking with other poets.
We know that's what it is to you. All your exhortations talk of just that.
Many of us, particularly the over-thirtys, know who and what we are,
and use poetry as a means for creative outlet, and have no need for critics' generally irrelevant criticism.
If Frost were here, I doubt very much that any one of us could add to his own insight of the Self, and its relation to the external world. He'd be above all criticism.
Same goes for Carroll and a lot of other great poets: they worked their craft and art,
fully competent and without critical "help"; only acceptance of what they wrote, because they wrote only the truth, and did not wallow in their wordings.
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| re: random thoughts about poetry critique joey 2 Oct 08 9:03AM | Thread Closed |
yes, as you suggested, you're not often the poet. what other anthropological account of 'poets' have you to offer the maine bankers association annual dinner?
> "the poet is better than the critic, and the poet can talk the critic
> into making sense, or the poet's no poet at all. i mean that, we know
> what we've written, just not how we wrote it. and that's the point
> of a critical poetry site... that it's not about 'improving your
> poem' at all.it's about finding yourself as a poet by talking with
> other poets.
>
> We know that's what it is to you. All your exhortations talk of just
> that.
> Many of us, particularly the over-thirtys, know who and what we are,
> and use poetry as a means for creative outlet, and have no need for
> critics' generally irrelevant criticism.
>
> If Frost were here, I doubt very much that any one of us could add to
> his own insight of the Self, and its relation to the external world.
> He'd be above all criticism.
> Same goes for Carroll and a lot of other great poets: they worked
> their craft and art,
> fully competent and without critical "help"; only acceptance of what
> they wrote, because they wrote only the truth, and did not wallow in
> their wordings.
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