poetry with zero replies

[Rose Love]

the sentiment of this is cool an posting is scary enough but critiquing is even scarier an is a skill in its own right
most of us newbies come along an think yeah i'll post wot i got....but then you see this place for wot it is..O M G !!!!
you right it aint a pat on the back site, it is a place to actually improve you writing skills...even the 'poetry exercises' have words that i have never heard in me life before 'meter' 'refraints' etc etc

so we soon find out very quickly we know NOTHING about poetry...ok so we post an we quite rightly need/want to comment on others, but you already say you dont want this to be another 'pat on the back' site..fine..but we dont have the tools or skill set to actually critique proper, so all we can do is say wot we feel..yeah it is in 1 line comments..but now we getting slayed for that !!!!

take a poet here like anyone say cidermaid's poem 'Not Out' posted in the 'Mild Critique' board...how can a newbie possibly give a decent critique of it ? she maybe new to the site but already a very competent writer...unlike most of us. I have read some of Heslopian's poems thats only got 1 comment from billy..an yeah is a shame but how can a newbie follow that critique ? we is like the little bro hiding behind the big bro in a argument about to turn violent shouting from behind our own little digs

learning poetry is a marathon not a sprint somone told me..he's been writing nearly 20 years..for meself just over a year..an i soon realised everythin i wrote is rubbish..cliche an poorly written..wont even go into the appauling grammar an spelling 95% of all members will come a go in under 12 months...just you average forum site life span, of that 5% that stay an try 4% will give up an leave in exasperation 1% will be here for a very long time...rantings ok but maybe look at how to nuture that 4% an be patient with em

I agree about the critique part. I may or may not have something to say that's not positive about someone's poem, but I am easily influenced by others comments too and I think "Hmmm...so-and-so didn't mention this thing, so I guess it's not worth me mentioning it either." Or "So-and-so didn't find any issues with this poem, so this thing bothering me must be my imagination." Usually I start out reading a poem and by the time I get to the end, I can't think even where to begin or how, or if I even should, especially if things I saw nobody else even cared about.

In language (particularly spelling and grammar), I'm a perfectionist, but through my work I learned that everyone else hates a perfectionist, so I leave people alone and let them write how they will (unless I'm doing my job). If I have something positive to say, or something, anything that is not trying to correct someone else's writing/English, then I will.

Concerning "meter" and "refrains"--I don't know about them either. For me there is rhythm and there is rhyme. I guess I learned about meter a million years ago in school, but I haven't a clue... You can either write poetry "by-the-book" or you can write it by your own heart. It's probably best to learn to do both. I find writing "by-the-book" doesn't really serve the main purpose I write poetry for (therapy and processing of emotions), but writing it "by-the-book" can be fun and challenging, if I get the extra time to do that.

Maybe it's better not to start out thinking about meter? But you do need to get a feeling for rhythm and the rhythm of the words as you put them together in the lines and stanzas. That's reflected mostly by deliberately choosing words with the right amount of syllables so the lines and stanza flows smoothly with cadence when you read it.