The Audience

[Seraphim]

how do you become a better writer if all you do is say it meets my personal standards what happens if your standards are low? even if you have i standards how does one improve if they simply ignore critique? i'll go one step further, why are you in a poetry workshop if all you listen to is you?

Writing for myself as an audience is one matter; learning to improve the craft is another. I have previously been a voracious work-shopper. It, and reading voraciously, is how I learned the craft and developed my standards. Work-shopping helps me develop further in the craft and permits me to raise my personal standards. Discussion permits me to look at something with a different POV.

Example: I've been looking through the catalog of poems which - at one time - I had considered 'finished'. Then spent two hours tightening one up, smoothing out the language. I've work-shopped pieces I've considered finished - perhaps I should say finished for that particular point in time - only to look at it completely different after hearing other peoples' comments. But as I revise it, I'm still writing it for me.

We either change or we stagnate. Work-shopping helps us change.