[Rory Waterman]

A workshop calls for tact and good manners

Yes: good manners and also honesty. It's a tightrope, but a fat tightrope.

[Rick Mullin]

The treatment of new posters is an interesting topic. No critique should ever be abusive or rude, of course. But someone new needs to get a quick, pointed lesson on what will be expected here. No brutality, but no padding. If this makes a lot of newcomers go away forever, then the system is working.

I have had my head very far up my own venture this week, but my experience indicates to me, at least, how invaluable the workshop is both as a means of improving individual poems and as a means getting better over time.

As one of the newcomer a few years ago, I dealt with being clobbered by clobbering back, which is why (I'm convinced) certain people won't critique my work anymore as a matter of policy. More importantly, I dealt with it by coming back, even when I was inclined to say screw it, with something better. And by coming back more receptive to critique.

I still need to be clobbered. As do we all. I often want to say screw it, and certain people will never comment on my work. And sometimes I clobber back. These things also indicate that the system is working and I am getting something out of it. Maybe not an MFA, but...~,:^)

[Allen Tice]

Rick, I don't want to turn you into an 'object', by which I mean: talk about you as if you were 'out there' and merely an animated lump that I can project my views on -- a 'thread-object' (?), so to speak. However (I hope you don't mind my speculating on you), maybe you were able to clobber back because you had a kind of power base in your being a well-paid and capable editor yourself. Packing heat, as it were. Anyone who rumbles you, gets rumbled. Not everyone has that. Also you are energetic and blessed with a spiky psyche. Not everyone has those gifts equally.

[Rick Mullin]

And at 5'3'', I no doubt have the whole Napoleon complex thing going on.

[Allen Tice]

napoleon |nəˈpōlēən| |nəˈpoʊliən| |nəˈpoʊljən| |nəˈpəʊlɪən|
noun
1 a flaky rectangular pastry with a sweet filling.

See your dentist regularly.

[Jim Hayes]

Isn't Napoleon a brandy? I mean, wasn't this French general/emperor guy called after it?

Another thing- is an orange called an orange because that's its color or is the color called orange because it looks like an orange?

Sometimes I wonder about these things.

[Rick Mullin]

And nothing rhymes with "orange." Am I right?

Answer to Mary below: Two, but I keep one tucked in the vest of my elaborate French general's uniform.

[Mary Meriam]

What I wonder is how Rick revised a poem while mowing the grass. Was there a notebook or electronic device involved? How many hands does Rick have?

[Janet Kenny]

Originally Posted by David Landrum

I agree with Janet that "art must be felt"--but to say that is not to say that art, especially poetic art, cannot be learned. There is technique and craft to poetry. Also there is the trap of falling into laziness with poetic lines, doing fill-in's for the sake of meter, rhyme for rhyme's sake, and so on (things I often do). These can be improved. And I also think that ability to "feel" art comes not from any in-born capacity but from familiarity with art. Hopefuly a workshop will cause people to read and study so that art can be felt.

The danger to the belief that art must be felt is a kind of elitism that leads to the idea of poets being some kind of prophetic club and not everyone has the prophetic gift and so are automatically excluded. When we see a poorly done poem we think, and often say, "This person just doesn't have it." Whatever "it" is, they can acquire it, to some degree, by work and exposure to good poetry. This is what we should encourage in workshops.

David,
Since you have quoted me I'd like to reply.

That art can be "learned" is only partially true. Small children show different kinds of talent early in life. Those with latent ability can certainly progress rapidly and achieve extraordinary progress in a sympathetic environment. A colour-blind individual will never be a good painter. A tone-deaf individual will never be a good musician.
Most of us are here because we need the company of others like ourselves who have an unsatisfied need to write poetry.
Because poetry takes many forms it's wise to be cautious when critting the work of a new member.
But we must be true to our own highest needs and remember what poetry can be. I didn't come here for therapy but because of the high quality of the poetry posted by many of the participants. I'm told I praise too often. I am often delighted by work on this forum.

Edited back to add that more poets leave this forum because their excellent work is published by journals which won't publish work that has appeared online rather than discouraged poets. It's excellence that is the main drain on the forum, not dejection.

[Laura Heidy-Halberstein]

Originally Posted by Janet Kenny

Edited back to add that more poets leave this forum because their excellent work is published by journals which won't publish work that has appeared online rather than discouraged poets. It's excellence that is the main drain on the forum, not dejection.

I thought we went thru this already and decided that Poetry Magazine was essentially the only "important" poetry journal which disallowed workshopping and that even they were pretty easy to get around.

Besides which, Alex has "fixed" Eratosphere so that workshopped poems do not show up on a Google search thereby negating your whole argument.

http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/showth...oetry+Magazine

http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/showth...oetry+Magazine

http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/showth...oetry+Magazine

I'm unsure where you get your last statement from, Janet, but every time a statement like this is made my email becomes full of letters from past members who disagree with you but are too burnt out to say so.