06-05-2011, 07:20 AM
OK, so I've only been here five minutes and already I have an opinion -- can nobody shut me up? Anyway. A word of advice -- if the onus for critique falls on only a few shoulders, those shoulders will soon fall off. Critique is MUCH harder than actually writing poetry, because we're forced to put ourselves inside someone else's head for a while and we're so very comfortable in our own. A good critique, however, can't be measured by the number of words. I will often take half an hour or more to write a critique, after having read the poem several times (sometimes over the space of a few days), but it might only need a sentence or two because there's no point in waxing lyrical about the bleeding obvious.
There is a serious dearth of good readers on all internet poetry sites. Many people will come up with the old "I'm not qualified to comment" chestnut, which is a complete cop-out -- if you think you're good enough to write the stuff, you must be able to read it. Ideally, in a workshop environment there should be an active dialogue between writers and readers, with writers responding (patiently, of course) to any criticism. I have always made a point of responding to every comment I've received on poems, even if they're completely useless -- they're the ones I just say "thank you" to, and move on. (So if I ever just say "thank you" without any elaboration, it's code for "put some bloody effort in next time or keep quiet".) A dialogue encourages people to comment further and makes them feel as if they're contributing to the creative process (and they are, usually).
I'm afraid I pretty much agree with Lawrence's "parasite" statement. In just a day or so I've noticed that there are certain posters who dominate the poem threads but don't seem to match that with any feedback on anyone else's work. I'm afraid I have a tendency to avoid those who are takers only, because I don't believe they're contributing at all to any sense of community or cooperation. (Additionally, and I can't back this up with solid statistics, it seems to me that they're the ones who rarely show any signs of actual development and write consistently on a single theme or slight variations on same.) However, I have been on sites where there is a demand to maintain a poem-to-comment ratio and unfortunately, while this seems wonderfully altruistic, it doesn't work -- so I believe give-and-take should be encouraged but not enforced. Serious attempts should be made (and I don't know if they have already, because I'm clearly kind of ignorant regarding the internal goings-on of the site) to build the confidence of people who attempt critiques -- more experienced poets should be giving detailed feedback on comments whenever they can, explaining why they will implement certain ideas and why others don't really fit their vision for the poem. That also forces the writer to consider suggestions properly instead of just saying "I'll look at that" without any intent to edit at all. Every poetry site "fosters" poets -- how about really building a great environment for critics also?
To the comment that someone who only critiques is not a poet -- well, I have many poems all over the internet, in journals and in published anthologies. I've tutored poetry at university level and have/ still do edit poetry for several periodicals. I believe that all aspects of poetry are equally important, the reading and criticism no less so than the writing. But at the moment, other than as necessary for illustration purposes, I have absolutely no intention of posting poetry here as I'm simply not in a writing phase. Right now I just prefer to read, gather inspiration and see if I can't be of help to the next great poet of our generation, who will graciously credit me as his/her revered mentor and send me lots of money.
There is a serious dearth of good readers on all internet poetry sites. Many people will come up with the old "I'm not qualified to comment" chestnut, which is a complete cop-out -- if you think you're good enough to write the stuff, you must be able to read it. Ideally, in a workshop environment there should be an active dialogue between writers and readers, with writers responding (patiently, of course) to any criticism. I have always made a point of responding to every comment I've received on poems, even if they're completely useless -- they're the ones I just say "thank you" to, and move on. (So if I ever just say "thank you" without any elaboration, it's code for "put some bloody effort in next time or keep quiet".) A dialogue encourages people to comment further and makes them feel as if they're contributing to the creative process (and they are, usually).
I'm afraid I pretty much agree with Lawrence's "parasite" statement. In just a day or so I've noticed that there are certain posters who dominate the poem threads but don't seem to match that with any feedback on anyone else's work. I'm afraid I have a tendency to avoid those who are takers only, because I don't believe they're contributing at all to any sense of community or cooperation. (Additionally, and I can't back this up with solid statistics, it seems to me that they're the ones who rarely show any signs of actual development and write consistently on a single theme or slight variations on same.) However, I have been on sites where there is a demand to maintain a poem-to-comment ratio and unfortunately, while this seems wonderfully altruistic, it doesn't work -- so I believe give-and-take should be encouraged but not enforced. Serious attempts should be made (and I don't know if they have already, because I'm clearly kind of ignorant regarding the internal goings-on of the site) to build the confidence of people who attempt critiques -- more experienced poets should be giving detailed feedback on comments whenever they can, explaining why they will implement certain ideas and why others don't really fit their vision for the poem. That also forces the writer to consider suggestions properly instead of just saying "I'll look at that" without any intent to edit at all. Every poetry site "fosters" poets -- how about really building a great environment for critics also?
To the comment that someone who only critiques is not a poet -- well, I have many poems all over the internet, in journals and in published anthologies. I've tutored poetry at university level and have/ still do edit poetry for several periodicals. I believe that all aspects of poetry are equally important, the reading and criticism no less so than the writing. But at the moment, other than as necessary for illustration purposes, I have absolutely no intention of posting poetry here as I'm simply not in a writing phase. Right now I just prefer to read, gather inspiration and see if I can't be of help to the next great poet of our generation, who will graciously credit me as his/her revered mentor and send me lots of money.
It could be worse