What's the funniest critique you've ever read

[Todd]

This is one I loved from another site. It still makes me smile. Critique can't and shouldn't always be encouraging. Sometimes it just needs to get to the point. That doesn't mean it can't be funny.

Here it is:

What a great idea for a poem.

It's too bad your imprecise language and telly reportage are preventing you from turning that great idea into a passable poem.

I don't care, or want to know if you're writing this from personal experience or not.

If you want your readers to believe that your narrator actually witnessed this event, you need to be more precise with your descriptions.

something
something
some
a man
a nearby dog
Someone

You've missed several great opportunities to show your readers what was happening. Instead, we have generic, non-specific, one dimensional cardboard cutout things, people and a dog.

Your opening doesn't work: what possible significance does the fact that *we* were stuck in a meeting all night have? Is the snow real, is it figurative snow, was there white debris from the blast that looked like snow? Who knows?

Your closing doesn't work: It's so awkwardly worded that we assume you're referencing the mental image of the carnage is going to be packed in your luggage. Can't you think of a better way to convey this? Is the sole thrust of the poem intended to be the effect the carnage has on the narrator?

There are logical inconsistencies as well. If N is too far away to identify the spinal column, how on earth can he/she determine that it's the heart on the hood of the car? How could the heart be distinguishable from half a liver, or any other piece of masticated meat?

Try precise description and less generic nothingness.
Try subtlety and less omniscient clinical telling.
Try thinking about what you're trying to say with this piece and then go about trying to say it.

Every single element of the poem should have a purpose. If the element does not contribute to the poem, it shouldn't be there.

Think of the Jarrell's ball turret gunner and the hose.
Subtle is good. Less is more.

Why are Hitchcock's movies so visually frightening?
The famous shower scene in Psycho doesn't show anyone getting stabbed with a kitchen knife.

Try a few dozen rewrites.
Try a few dozen massive rewrites.

Good luck.

[Leanne]

Now that is a constructive and classy critique Anyone who thinks comments need to be dry and generic probably shouldn't be here.

I don't operate on any other sites these days, so I don't remember any word for word. I mostly remember stupidity. I once got so annoyed with people demanding to know "what it means" before they apply themselves to reading that on one poem I posted a footnote that read: this is about the plight of the homosexual antelope on a veldt dominated by bigoted wildebeest.

To which one "critic" replied, with no tongue in cheek: you are to be congratulated for your courage in what must have been a very difficult situation.

[popeye]

LOL, good idea Todd! Might prevent crits. from being too personal if we all end up here

[Todd]

Ahh so he misidentified the poet with the speaker. He must have thought you were an emo-antelope that cut herself on the Serengeti because your love was forbidden.

That's brilliant.

[popeye]

Now that is a constructive and classy critique Anyone who thinks comments need to be dry and generic probably shouldn't be here.

I don't operate on any other sites these days, so I don't remember any word for word. I mostly remember stupidity. I once got so annoyed with people demanding to know "what it means" before they apply themselves to reading that on one poem I posted a footnote that read: this is about the plight of the homosexual antelope on a veldt dominated by bigoted wildebeest.

To which one "critic" replied, with no tongue in cheek: you are to be congratulated for your courage in what must have been a very difficult situation.

Which one' s Christian name was Oscar?

[Leanne]

The largest one.

[popeye]

Be nice if they made up andeloped!

[Leanne]

Kudu have made a worse pun?

---

I did once tell someone that his style reminded me of Yeats -- it was a good poem and I enjoyed it.

His reply was less than gracious.

"I don't remind anyone of anyone else. I am an individual. I don't write like some Irish faggot."

Needless to say, I didn't bother going back to read any more of his "individuality".

[popeye]

Kudu have made a worse pun?

[shemthepenman]

I had just got to the microphone at open mic in Greenwich (london), I was about 20 - 21, my first public reading; nervously I read the title, 'The Metaphysical Exposition of the Concept of Space [after Kant's German]’ and I proceeded to read this long and painful poem about loss and death and heartbreak that had taken many a miserable hour to compose... and, once I had finished, penetrating the silence came a lone and drunken voice,
'you're shit, mate!'

[i'm not sure this counts as I didn't read it, I got it live, but it still makes me smile to this day]

[Leanne]

It counts

Sometimes the audience is silent because they're stunned by brilliance, but most often they're silent because they can't decide which expletive fits best. Full credit to the drunk bloke, he made you a better poet.

[shemthepenman]

so true and also, the fellow got up after a while and read some of the best stuff I've ever heard, beer can in hand an' all.

[Leanne]

It's always a little less humiliating when your critic isn't shite himself

[abu nuwas]

It's always a little less humiliating when your critic isn't shite himself

Nevermind the wonderful poetry ---- at least the shit-man was still awake. I tend to sleep, esp if I've got the front row somewhere. I know just from your title, that that would have been one of those really deep sleeps. I wish I had been there. And I used to live on the Heath too.

[rowens]

I'm glad I never went to college. I would have just went to the toilet if I had to listen to anything "after Kant's German".

I believe that if I would've went to college I would never have been able to understand Hegel.

And for those that have seen me around the site enough, you might know that the criticism of my first book resulted in me being labelled mentally deficient.