[Janet Kenny]

I have sometimes wondered about the responsibility and limited usefulness of one's personal views when writing a crit.

I won't say which poem prompted my present rumination. It was a poem that engaged my imagination in an interesting way. It isn't a formal poem.

Because it's a forum I felt obliged to add my own constructive suggestion.

There were aspects of the poem that irritated me but the poem had engaged my imagination and attention. Who am I to tell a poet who comes from an entirely different background and has a lifetime of different experiences, how to "improve" his/her poem? My first care would be not to harm the good that already existed. I decided not to say anything at all.

Of course that's not how I feel at other times. I have profited from good advice and sometimes I feel close enough to a poem to be reasonably certain that my suggestion will be harmless at worst. But just as every actor on the stage has an aura which other actors respect, so does every poem come with an aura of otherness which we ought to respect.

If we know another poet fairly well we can let them have it with both barrels occasionally but then we must expect to have the missiles returned. Nothing new in this meditation. Just a refresher.

And when a new poster posts something which causes us to shudder do we wait or let 'em have it. OK! Cruelty can be fun.