[Sharon Passmore]

I know that this has been posted already on the "new moderators" thread but I'm posting it here too so that it's not so hard to find:

"New members may only respond to existing poetry threads and may not start any new ones of their own until they have offered at least 15 critiques, and, at least one week following membership approval, unless by special permission from any Eratosphere moderator."

[Carol Taylor]

Good idea to open this thread, Sharon.

The new rule is part of our modified registration agreement, which cautions that we are not a beginner's site and requires an applicant to indicate that he has read the Erato Guidelines (with a link) and agrees to abide by those guidelines as well as the guidelines for any individual forum in which he participates. A similar paragraph is included with the password in the automatic email.

Carol

[Sharon Passmore]

How about a little conversation about what constitutes a quality crit, folks? I suggest this because the serious members get kind of ticked off with crits like "I really liked this." or some such simple comment when we are all here for in depth crits, you know, to get shredded LOL.

Gaz has a wonderful page about how to crit. I'll try to find it and post it later.

[alvaro.alarcon]

I think, Sharon, in judging crits people should not look at one individual's critique to grade a person's overall critiquing abilities, but at trends. The "I really like this" type of crit followed by a more detailed review reveals a person who may be light hearted at times, serious at other times, or too much in a rush to offer much of a critique at one time or, when that detailed critique is written, in a composed and serious mood. Sometimes I see a rashness on nonmet from old and new members alike which gives me something of the willies.

Personally I dream of a day one year from now when Erato is stricter in enforcing its guidelines, more welcoming of prose, and where there is even more of a sense of community, support, and a common good. Hopefully the seasoned writers will teach promising newbies, and so forth. Vanity posting is the bane of this place. Do people post here to get noticed by editors? This place is a workshop, R&D-only, a site fomenting the written arts.

Alvaro

I've had a bourbon and water to loosen me up, so there've you heard it.



[This message has been edited by alvaro.alarcon (edited January 23, 2004).]

[Sharon Passmore]

Actually, I meant only "I really like this", but I see your point.

[Carol Taylor]

"I really like this" has become a cliche for inexperienced critique, and as such has lost its real meaning. We demand that every member critique a certain number of poems per poem of his own he posts, whether he has a clue how to critique or not. And then we point the finger and say "this is what's wrong with Erato" because all he can come up with is a subjective reaction. That subjective reaction, whether it can be dissected and analyzed in technical terms or not, is the single most significant critical element a poem can receive. "Your poem works for me or it doesn't." Knowing how your poem comes across to different individuals is key.

Even experienced poets are not necessarily experienced critics. You acquire experience one critique at a time. If inexperienced critics stay around a good workshop long enough they become experienced critics. They learn to analyze why they like something or why they don't. They learn to take a poem apart and find out what isn't working, or to appreciate the skill that makes the elements coalesce. They get up the nerve to risk being wrong. They learn to consider the source, to pay attention to the thinking of successful poets and experienced critics, and sometimes even to disagree. (No critic ever gets so good that he can't be disagreed with by another equally good critic.)

We do try to attract experienced critics to this board--teachers, professional critics, editors, students of poetry, and participants in other successful workshops--and we've had a remarkable degree of success. I'm proud of that. The better the critique the more we can learn. But not everyone comes to this board as an expert critic. And we aren't here to critique the critic anyway. That is the prerogative and the responsibility of the person whose poem is being assessed.

In the military and in corporate America, officers are given fitness reports by their superiors. Some commanders routinely say every officer they review is perfect (unless he has sunk the ship) in order to avoid damning him with faint praise. Some commanders wouldn't give a perfect fitness report to God. Some even let an officer write his own report. Because the same officer may get an excellent fitness report from one commander and a mediocre one from another, the Navy combines the subjective assessment with a relative (1 to x) scale. "Of the x number of officers you are reviewing at this time, how do you rank this one?"

In the same way, poets need to read the reviews a critic gives other poems in order to assess whether that critic's style and standard is mostly indulgent or mostly disapproving; whether he routinely exaggerates to make a rhetorical point, or is nit-pickingly honest, or is kind at the expense of verity; whether he is a close reader who is willing to follow where the poem is going or insists on it going somewhere else; whether he reads more into the poem than he finds; the depth of his knowledge and his ability to communicate it; his ability to write good poetry himself; and whether he has a particular bias or pet peeve that may color his opinion.

Critics are not equal. Critiques are not absolute. You have to consider the source, and you are finally responsible for your own poem, no matter how many people have helped you with it.


Carol

[Alan Sullivan]

Loud applause! Well said, Carol. You have thought long and deeply about these matters. I'll risk joining the "I really liked this" school just this once!

Alan

[Janet Kenny]

Carol
Some good sense based on experience:
May I timidly say before dying that because a critic looks good it doesn't follow that he is. Form and content can be as hollow in a crit as in a poem.
Some people are more impressed by faux authority than others. I am most impressed by insight--which is sometimes poorly expressed.
I dread where this may lead although I sympathise with the motivation.

Janet
Should I have posted here? Sorry if I'm out of place.

[This message has been edited by Janet Kenny (edited January 24, 2004).]

[Carol Taylor]

Very good point, Janet.

Carol

[peter richards]

Hello, Carol,

just a brief continuation of Alan's applause - his hands were starting to hurt.

p