How to Critique a Poem

 

First, I do not expect every comment on my poems to be a critique -- please don't feel required to become a critic! Please, please don't! I love getting comments on my poems; just that tells me it meant something for you. Critiques are, however, welcome if you feel so inclined.

This post is an effort to remind myself how to best go about this, which I sometimes do. I hope it might be useful for others who offer feedback on poems, as well.

As I've recommitted myself to poetry, and increased my participation in online poetry communities, I've discovered that I seem to have lost the knack of offering concise and helpful feedback on a poem, while being supportive and encouraging.

I have participated in several real-life workshops, with excellent teachers, and seemed to manage it in those settings. But online is different. (Some communities, of course, like Read Write Poem, specifically discourage critique unless the poet requests it.)

Each comment seems, somehow, too blunt, too narrow. I mean this about the comments I make, not those I receive. I am practiced at receiving critiques, and have many years of writing behind me to hold me up against unexpected pushes. I also have rules for myself about receiving C&C (Comments & Critique) developed in face- to- face workshops, that help keep my balance:

• Be receptive; do not speak.
• Write down everything, including responses you don't like or don't think will be useful.
• Do not respond to anything other than direct questions; and delay responding to those, if possible, until the critique is done.

This is easily done online. Less easily done is to  communicate nuance and feeling in responding to someone else's work. Usually this is accomplished with gesture, expression, and voice -- none of which are available at the keyboard. (Emoticons just don't do it for me.)

I realize I've developed the habit, unless I'm working -- that is, trying to learn something from this specific poem or poet -- of reading poems more quickly than I ought to. I read a poem, sit with the feeling or ideas it evokes for a moment, and then move on. Unless, that is, the poem raises some question for me: why does the poet break the line here? how did this poem evoke such a powerful feeling in me? what does that word mean?

poem| a virtual poetry group has especially made me aware of how careless I've become, as I see the attention and depth with which others approach the poems up for discussion. I would like to bring at least some of that kind of attention to the poems offered up in the other communities I belong to. 

I've done a quick review online, and pulled out aging notes from my file cabinet, to pull together this list, much of which came from a very useful thread at How to critique a poem (aka Best Critiques on Poets.org):

• Critique the poem, not the poet.
• Don't assume that the speaker of the poem is the poet; poets often write in fictional voices.
• Offer suggestions for the poem from the point of view of a reader: point out the places that you don’t understand or sections that you find inconsistent with other parts of the poem. Give advice on the poem that is as concrete as possible. Tell the poet that you didn’t understand this line, or that word, or ask why each stanza begins with a capital letter.
  
• Say what you like about the poem; be specific.
• Tell the poet if you were confused by something; again, be specific.
• Say what you think does, and does not, work in the poem.
• Pay attention to what you felt as you read the poem, and share that.
• A small amount of encouragement goes a long way to making any critique more palatable to the poet, and thus is more likely to be taken seriously because the poet knows you’ve read and thought about his/her poem.
• There's a fine line between offering specific revision suggestions, and rewriting someone else's poem. Take care with this.
  

One of the guidelines often suggested is to not address the content of the poem, with the assumption that workshop poets are interested primarily, or only, in feedback on craft. That's not the case with me; I'm also interested in what you think and feel about the content, even if it offends, or confuses, or bewilders you.

I've begun adding to my critique tag in my del.icio.us bookmarks, and I'm putting that tagroll on this post, so it will update automatically and serve as a resource for further thought.

Please comment with any further ideas, thoughts, or resources on this topic. I'm going to link this post to the Critiques Welcome button on the sidebar, so it will continue to be easily available.

Comments

[...deb]

Ah, you've said this all well, with grace and openess. With clarity. And with terrific links.

Thank you! (And thanks for the nod to ReadWritePoem. You might check Christine's last Get the Lead Out at RWP with ammendments by Tiel in comments for a few additional prompt groups.)

I shall bookmark this and come back to it. Again. Again.

[Dick]

This is a really useful guide, Sharon, & it coincides with reflections I've been having recently about the function & utility of the various poetry forums. Like you, I'm a frequent user of a couple of them & I welcome the opportunity to read a variety of poems arising from one stimulus. And I like to express my appreciation when something strikes me as noteworthy.

However, I'm not sure how helpful is the near-universal approbation that we all tend to dole out. It's rewarding to have one's efforts appreciated, but the universality of the praise & its unstinting nature doesn't really stimulate the further growth of the poem. The other day I went through over 20 comments following a posted poem on one of the regular poet's blogs & only two of us had ventured any qualification in our praise of the (very fine) piece.

I tend not to gather very many responses from fellow contributors to poems that I post on the various forums & it's rare indeed that qualified comment is made on what I know to be unfinished work. I recognise that workshopping is not one of the functions of these sites, but increasingly I feel that real appreciation is manifest more in the kind of thorough scrutiny & measured criticism outlined above than in extravagant praise.

Maybe there's need for a halfway house between the pure celebration of poetry & the forensic precision of the poetry workshop. No time here, I'm afraid, for such a project. Anyone else up for the task?

[...deb]

Good comments, Dick. Susan (of Black-eyed Susan's) has started - with a partner I don't know - a prompt-post group open to critique. It's quite new. I don't want to add a bunch of links here and get stuck in the spam-filter, but you can find a link on my site in a recent post or look for "The Last Piaster" in Blogger.

Carolee and Jill have a private critique group at fertile ground (WordPress). They have another project that is critique-based, too; it's on their sidebar. Check stoney moss for those links, or SB likely has them around as well.

[SB]

Yes, they are under POETRY LINKS on the sidebar.

[susan]

SB,

Love your article. Everything you and Deb have expressed, I have read, felt and written about as well. Parker has written similar articles. Having been apart of communities for a decade now, I've learned the group of poets who want critique and value it is really small and while we may communicate we want it, my experience has been that it is rare that we'll receive a qualified critique in online communities.

And then there are my failings. It is so easy to forget to point out specifics when the norm is to praise or say nothing to avoid be accused of being critical which is not the same as offering a critique. The idea that a critique is an evaluation of the work and not the poet is often lost on a novice poet. And trying to explain the difference wore me out over time.

At my best, I try to say what I like and why though I've never been too technical. Over a few years, I learned more about reading poetry than actually writing it, and I haven't mastered either well enough to explain it with ease. I suppose you might say I'm still at stage two awareness.

Online manners. I have an overwhelming desire to encourage and be polite. I've learned that most poets want to be read and acknowledged. That's enough.

Lastly, when I read someone like you or Deb who value critique, I then feel you know more than I do so what can I add that you haven't considered?

I should have saved this last one for Confession Tuesday. Ah, I'll probably share it.

Thanks for the information. I've shared with others to check it out.

[SB]

"...when I read someone like you or Deb who value critique, I then feel you know more than I do so what can I add that you haven't considered?"

But, we can't possibly have considered our poems from your point of view, can we? It is sometimes those different eyes that can shed light.

[...deb]

Hey Susan - I think you meant SB and *Dick's* expressions. (Though I'd love to be in the same category.)

I heartily agree with SB - different eyes - and voices - make a difference and help a poet understand words, and meanings.

[UL]

I would love to have a button that says "Critique Welcome", It has just been over a year since I started posting poetry on my blogs, reading them was how I began and then writing happened somewhere in between..but what I noticed frustrating in these communities is real criticism, my poetry often makes me want to hear another's opinion, ways to improve, things to avoid..and I have had very few people who gave me an honest opinion. Is there a place I could sign up to -online- so I can get some REAL feedback. I love positive remarks, makes me want to write more, but I also know I am imperfect, and want to improve. This post conjured up all these thoughts, I loved the button, is there anyway I could use it?

[SB]

Feel free to steal the button! Just right-click and save to your computer, then upload it to your blog.

Also, there is a critique group at fertile ground. I'm not participating in that (enough on my plate at the moment) but I'm sure it's worthwhile.

[Isabella]

Blin ... really beautifully written! All this is so familiar ... and truthfully!

[Magdalene Mwangi]

Noted, thanks for sharing