About Critique
#15
(10-30-2018, 05:18 PM)RiverNotch Wrote:  Criticism is of least value to the editor. Emotions often run higher when killing one's darlings, such that even the best critique can fail to penetrate the most receptive mind; meanwhile, the composer gets a second chance, the critic gets a soapbox, and the general audience gets a full conversation. Poetry is a form of communication, and communication grows in value the more voices it involves.

Feedback focuses on technicalities, on how some bits of form and substance fail the rest of the poem, and so it is of greatest value to the editor. I consider the two to be distinct, although not mutually exclusive: good critique always involves good feedback if the poem is a work of progress, while feedback stops being feedback and gets fully subsumed into the critique once the poem is considered complete.

Keeping all this in mind means that I offer feedback (and here, as always, I use the term more generally) much less often than I probably could, because the one thing I look for in a poem that I am to critique (again, general use) is that it makes me respond with something interesting. I could love a poem, but if I have very little to say about it then I turn discreet; I could hate a poem, but if its problems are too generic someone else would have already said what I would say.
Meh, I don't know, even the Mona Lisa has room for improvement. 
I don't there's ever a space for criticism in poetry, but critique is valid, despite its tendency to marginalize creativity of the piece and regardless of the author's receptivity.
For me, the most prominent aspect in any assessment is the incubation period after the first read.
After eating the other person's thoughts, you need let to them digest, otherwise you puke up truisms.
assholery not intended .
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Messages In This Thread
About Critique - by Todd - 10-24-2018, 07:23 AM
RE: About Critique - by Leanne - 10-24-2018, 08:03 AM
RE: About Critique - by Todd - 10-25-2018, 12:26 AM
RE: About Critique - by Keith - 10-24-2018, 09:15 AM
RE: About Critique - by rowens - 10-24-2018, 09:33 AM
RE: About Critique - by Richard - 10-24-2018, 10:08 AM
RE: About Critique - by rowens - 10-24-2018, 10:28 AM
RE: About Critique - by Todd - 10-25-2018, 12:34 AM
RE: About Critique - by billy - 10-24-2018, 11:31 AM
RE: About Critique - by rowens - 10-25-2018, 01:23 AM
RE: About Critique - by dukealien - 10-25-2018, 10:00 PM
RE: About Critique - by rowens - 10-30-2018, 05:48 AM
RE: About Critique - by dukealien - 10-30-2018, 06:42 AM
RE: About Critique - by RiverNotch - 10-30-2018, 05:18 PM
RE: About Critique - by cloud - 11-01-2018, 02:14 AM



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