Intention and Critique

[ellajam]

I think my example regarding my poem about grapes explains perfectly well why intent is relevant when critique a poem.  There is nothing wrong with critiquing line break, meter, punctuation, etc but if you knew the authors intent you could better help them write the words that convey the meaning.

Any examples anyone posts from a published poem aren't relevant in the sense that the author is no longer editing the poem, and isn't asking for our critique.

I thought your grape/orange example explained perfectly well why intent is irrelevant.

If you see an orange in my grape, maybe even enjoy or cherish that orange, who am I to complain? Sometimes during workshopping I have even decided my grape is a bit more orange-hued than purple and changed the poem to allow for that. I understand that figuring out intent can strengthen the helpfulness of critique but so can expressing what the critic, mistakenly or not, sees as the poet's intent.

I love the view from the fence.