the serious critique forum (urgent, please read)

[Todd]

so I have a revision for one of my poems and I'm thinking that I want to post it in Mild but at the same time I'm still new and not even fully understanding the formats yet, is that how the progression goes though? first novice, then one revision in mild and then serious?

It's a little subjective. Here's sort of how it works:

If you're fully unsure where to post and very new to poetry Novice isn't a bad place to begin.

A lot of time what format you post in depends on how comfortable you are critiquing other poems. If you don't feel up to the types of critiques common in the Serious forum, you can acclimated in Mild or Novice.

My personal expectation for posting poems in Serious is that you want extensive critique. You have the ability to execute on the critique if you agree with it. You've done basic proofreading. Sure you can miss something now and then but to have the poem littered with obvious errors that are not intentional shouldn't be posted. You are your copy editor not the site.

You've also eliminated a lot of beginner mistakes. We all have them. We all slip occasionally, but Serious should not be emergency room triage for a poem. It should be a physical and a prescription--another set of trained eyes.

There does not though need to be a progression from Novice, to Mild, to Serious. You can start anywhere. If you choose to start in Serious do your prep work in advance.

Just my thoughts