[wendy v]

I can't really shine to Mortensons's metaphor because I tend to think of poets as adults with some sort of perspective, (and an ability to walk away), not kids ganging up on one another on a playground. And I've never felt "battered" by a critique. I've felt the sting of a truth, but that's no battering.

I've also felt disappointment in my readers and disappointment in my poems, but I don't think of these moments as violent.

Esther, I think some poems just won't do well in workshops. Sometimes we're just hellishly bent on having immediate clarity, sudden understanding, and rapid medication, (let's face it; we're staring at screens, time is always an issue, and we're reading with a purpose in mind), and that's not the best way to take in a poem. And I think some poems are beyond workshopping, (many fine and well-known works would be frowned upon here at Erato -- see Eliot, and others over on Musing), not because they're perfect, but because they're better off in spite of, or perhaps because of their spiritual "flaws". Other times the writing feels so intensely divine between poet and poem that any outside interference feels utterly vulgar. And then there are the other times -- when specific and learned feedback is so absolutely necessary and glorious to have, you wonder how you ever survived without.

Even still, I cherish and require my isolation, too. I don't workshop about half of the poems that I write. But as far as they go, this place is the best. Clawson recently said the best thing to do in a workshop is read your readers. I would add, know the difference between your own instinct and your own stubborness. It isn't alway easy, but it's good to keep in mind.


wendy

[Tim Murphy]

Wendy, I think it was you who suggested that if we divide the metrical board, one section be called "Ball and Chain." There those of us who relish the rough and tumble can go to be lacerated by Alan. Another section could be called "Peaches and Cream." There Terese and others of like mind could emote with great sympathy and sensitivity over one another's rough drafts. Or we could call it "Lampshades," which is what we put over the heads of injured puppies when they so excessively lick their wounds that they develop "lick granuloma."

[Richard Wakefield]

We've talked about what poetry should be, what poets should do -- but for me there's also the fact of what actually happens when I read my own writing: I tend to read what I meant to write, rather than what actually got onto the page. Simple things like pronoun reference can screw things up, or misplaced modifiers -- and these make a difference in meaning or, at the very least, in the reader's sense of the writer's engagement. And that's prose. With poetry the opportunities to read the feelings I put into it, rather than the feelings that stuck, can be overwhelming. So if the careful readers here do nothing more than make me see what I've actually written, they've done enough.
Richard

[Terese Coe]

Tim

It's refreshing to see your humor on the subject. Thanks for the smile. Rather than "ball and chain" as a name for the site targeted for laceration frenzies, I suggest S&M. I imagine there would be many more wounds to lick there than in the peaches and cream area. To each his own.

Is there nothing in between "ball and chain" and "peaches and cream"? No DMZ?

Terese

[This message has been edited by Terese Coe (edited March 25, 2001).]

[mandolin]

I haven't been able to participate much in the last couple of weeks -- we're buying a house and I'm switching computer OSes (MacOS X is grand!) so it won't get much better soon -- but when I've had the time to lurk I've been disappointed at the number of complaints about what appears to me to be honest, strong criticism.

I didn't see your poem(I have now -- see below), Esther, so I don't presume to accuse you of unnecessary complaining, but I strongly disagree with several remarks you made above, particularly this paragraph:

Let me confess that I have often longed for someone just to look at my poems in the way we used to look at a poem in a college English class. We used to assume then that the poem was as it should be, and the aim of our scrutiny was just to figure out what was so neat about it. We didn't have to decide whether it was good or not -- that had been decided for us, and there was also no question of changing the poem. We had only to enjoy and try to understand.

After high school, this isn't even a good way to approach the masters, not if one is serious about poetry. No made thing is "as it should be," and while we're figuring out what's "neat about it," we also need to figure out its minor failures, or even if it's neat at all -- for the schools are often wrong. Alan Sullivan and Robert Mezey are conducting a lively and instructive debate on Eliot's prosody over at Musing on Mastery, and cummings is getting some (IMNHO) well-deserved drubbing. That's the kind of attention I want for my poems, and I would be very sorry to lose the only opportunity I've ever found to get it.

(added after reading the poem and replies to it)
"Peonies and Cedars" is a very strong draft of a poem, and there wasn't a word of complaint in your responses to the posted critiques. But that 13th line, with its extra, weak iamb is is not up to the rest of the poem. The thread seems to me to point up the value of the criticism offered here.

[This message has been edited by mandolin (edited March 26, 2001).]

[Julie]

I do create in isolation.

But I don't view the creation as the whole point. I create my Adam out of clay, then kick him the hell outta the garden and watch him squirm.

Julie

[Esther Cameron]

I appreciate the thoughtful responses to this post, and just want to clarify one point: my post was NOT intended as a plea for isolation. Why would I be here, then? I'm also not saying we shouldn't comment on each other's poems. I'm just trying to think of a different paradigm for sharing our work, precisely from the need Michael Juster spoke of to create a better counterculture.

Nor do I mean to deny that we can help each other on occasion. Wordsworth's "Daffodils" contains a line suggested by his wife.

But if only as a thought-experiment, I'd like to suggest the following: Let each poet submit not a poem that is still being worked on, but the poem they consider their best. Others would then comment, asking the question "How does this work?" rather than "Is this or that a mistake?"

One hope for this kind of exchange would be that poets would feel freer to share their most vital work. Let's face it, most of us are deadly afraid of being called sentimental, which in the usual workshop situation is sure to happen sooner or later if anyone puts forth anything that is deeply felt. There's such a thing as plain mush, of course, but it also happens to be true that the strongest poems tend to come in response to something that has really got us where we live. I've been in workshops where most of the participants felt that any respect shown to the underlying emotion was a violation of the canons of pure Art. The result was that everyone started playing their cards closer and closer to their chest until no one was writing anything interesting at all. I think that a lot of the trouble with modern and postmodern poetry is that it is written not for ordinary people who want things expressed for them but for peers who *do not know how to receive.* If we could practice the art of listening to each other, maybe there could once again be a counterculture worthy the name.

Well, as one person observed, that's a lot of prose. But I have also on occasion been moved to verse by this subject, for instance:


CORPSES CLOG THE LITMAGS

The soul is naked among enemies,
And nowhere does it take more grievous wounds
Than where "well-meaning" poets hack away
At one another's poems. Merciless

As angels of the IRS, they pounce
On any word that each deems not OK,
Seldom standing still for long to guess
At the moving shape on the poem's horizon

Or hear the word the poem cannot quite say.
The poet, on his knees, starts to confess
His errors as they're fingered one by one.
Soon from his comrades' hands he takes the knife

And cuts the poem's tie to his own breath
And does the rest of what the pack wants done.
Its maker's eyes lit with thirst for its life-
Blood are the last thing the poem sees.

The corpses clog the litmags by the ton.


Esther

[Julie]

Originally posted by Esther Cameron:

But if only as a thought-experiment, I'd like to suggest the following: Let each poet submit not a poem that is still being worked on, but the poem they consider their best. Others would then comment, asking the question "How does this work?" rather than "Is this or that a mistake?"

And if I were to feel that such a poem didn't work?

After all, I comment on famous canonical poems that I feel don't work. I never assume any poem works, no matter how it's presented. I want to be critical. It doesn't interfere with my sheer enjoyment of a poem that I feel *does* work.

What it comes down to for me is this: If I post a poem and it works, I already know why. I designed it that way. If it doesn't work, I probably already know why it doesn't, too. I get surprised sometimes, when poems have a different effect than I intended, but those times are relatively rare and getting rarer all the time.

In school, I was never handed a poem and asked how it worked. I was often handed poems and asked if they worked. Once I answered the if, I could try to answer why or why not. But I can't assume the if and I wouldn't want anyone to assume the if for my work. I don't think I could ask someone else, or be asked, to apply critical faculties to a poem without being allowed to share the results, good or ill.

Of course, I couldn't participate anyway since I don't have any poems that aren't being worked on!

Julie

[Robert J. Clawson]

I presume we're 95% adults. I presume most of us have had some schooling in poetry. I presume that most of us love it. Why else would we be here? Loneliness?

Each of us is the final arbitor. We can take and use what's useful to the poem, and ignore the rest.

Some readers will read your work better than others. Some may even see more in your work than you do. Use them. They enjoy helping you.

I think we should be ready for negative criticism if we're posting early drafts. Most of the boards I've checked out (and this is by far the best I've found) load up with poems so fast that I'm flabbergasted...until I read a few.

If you find you're spending too much time on the board, go into isolation. While there, write. Revise. Study your craft. If you get too immersed in poetry, read about Shakleton or Snakes. Take a trip. Sharpen your powers of observation.

If you're lonely, take tango lessons.

Bob

[momdebomb]

Isolation and input both have their uses.

A poem written by committee would be scarcely better than a poem written by the computer in Carol's poem. It's important to stay true to our own voices. But if I write a poem about the St. Louis Arch and everyone thinks I'm writing about MacDonald's, I want to know about it.

Richard said it better,
"I tend to read what I meant to write, rather than what actually got onto the page. Simple things like pronoun reference can screw things up, or misplaced modifiers -- and these make a difference in meaning or, at the very least, in the reader's sense of the writer's engagement. And that's prose. With poetry the opportunities to read the feelings I put into it, rather than the feelings that stuck, can be overwhelming. So if the careful readers here do nothing more than make me see what I've actually written, they've done enough."


On the other hand Esther hit the nail on the head when she said,
"No one thought of using these departures as clues, and following them to the heart of the poem."

I've found myself wondering sometimes, if people weren't editing already on the first read through.

I notice that sometimes the very thing that people suggest cutting is the "heart of the poem". I'm not just talking about my poems here either. I've noticed this a few times.

Even that can be useful though, because I can then ask myself, "Why isn't it clear that that was intentional."


It just comes down to using both the isolation and the input to their best advantage, and keeping true to one's own voice and vision.

Sharon P.

P.S. I promise to read everyone's poems once for enjoyment and then start composing my comments on the second read.