[Perry Miller]

Originally Posted by Susan McLean

Welcome, Perry. As you read around in poetry, you will find that there are many types of poetry, and some will be more appealing to you than others are. This poem is written in the plain style (not a lot of ornamentation, but some soundplay and wordplay) and is didactic in focus (which is definitely not in fashion at the moment, but is sometimes the case with short, epigrammatic poems). You are not required to comment on everything, so feel free to limit yourself to the poems that you find you are most receptive to. Telling people what you like or dislike about a poem is helpful, so thanks for that. The most helpful thing you can do is to propose ways that you think the poem can be improved, without just telling the poet to write a different kind of poem.

Susan

Gee, I thought I had left a careful and helpful critique, but it seems not.

First, "didactic" was the word I was looking for but couldn't think of.

I did comment on your poem because I found it "receptive", though I would use the word "accessible". I don't always suggest improvements, preferring instead to just state what I think and let the author take from that what she wants. In this case, I think I implied that you should try to find some clever twist to put in the poem (in my book, cleverness is good in poetry), but I wouldn't dream of proposing specific language. Perhaps what the poem needs is that "change of direction" you mentioned before.