Lo,
No matter how it's sliced--Critting someone else's critique is bad manners. PERIOD.
One of the reasons I always hesitate to comment on a poem of any sort is the distinct possibility of being mocked for it, or thought of as less-intelliegent or less-knowledgable than others..
Only by people who haven't read your work or one of your critiques. I extend the invitation to anyone to comment on one of my poems. No matter the opinion. Even if they want clarification before giving a crit. The more diverse the comments, the merrier.
The only thing that I've noticed (Here and other boards) is if the first critter doesn't like your work and expresses a negative attitude toward it, a lot of people who follow pick up on those negative cues and are influenced by them.
Why should anyone find a positive response, which differs from their own, "far kinder than called for"?
Don't know who you're referring to (that started the ball rolling, as it were) but it implies that everyone else's comments were wrong compared to his/her so the answer to your question---a condenscending attitude.
And as to your audience for modern poetry (what the masses like)...walk down the aisles of the Hallmark store. See those people reading the cards? There you go.
Is that saying I'm a better person/reader/connoisseur of poetry? Nope. Just different tastes.
Michel,
Dude, I ain't picking on you but...
It's my personal belief that no poem is totally unsalvageable (though sometimes salvation seems to require altogether too much effort)
Effort on whose part? You seem to indicate later that you think the critiquer can somehow pull a magic trick out of their hat (or elsewhere) and help a poster turn around a poem that was questionable to start with. Yeah, I could take the same words that my 10 year old uses to write a poem, put a spin on them/ edit out the bad parts/ change the syntax/ correct the spelling/make sure that all the tenses agree/add some imagery/ slip in a really cool metaphor...(etc) But if I did ALL that, haven't I in effect written a new poem that really hasn't got anything to do with my daughter other than she originally penned the words?
and I really loathe it when people here (or elsewhere) tell someone else to scrap a poem. As far as I'm concerned, these claims usually indicate a failure to make the effort required to write a proper critique: it's the lazy man's way out of helping someone else. And in a way, this touches upon a problem I have with this very site: little or no attempt is made to help the uninitiated/more amateurish poets.
That's why in the introductions, everyone is informed that this board isn't for amateurs.
There is no real way for a new poet to learn from the more experienced poets on this site, unless it is by lurking. And in the end, lurking can only take you so far. And this is this community's major failing: it in no way attempts to welcome new poets to the fold. Instead, it adopts a more conservative standpoint.
Of course my poems are not up to this board's better standards, but as to your last comment--I was welcomed. Openly. I also took my lumps. Oh, and I lurked for about a 16 months.
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It's a dog-eat-dog world and I'm wearing Milk Bone underwear.
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