[Richard Wakefield]

Being interviewed by Donald Hall in 1961, Marianne Moore had this to say about criticism:

"We should try to judge the work of others by the most that it is, and our own, if not by the least that it is, take the least into consideration. I feel that I would not be worth a button if not grateful to be preserved from myself, and informed if what I have written is not to the point. I think we should feel free, like La Fontaine's captious critic, to say, if asked, 'Your phrases are too long, and the content is not good. Break up the type and put it in the font.' As Kenneth Burke says in 'Counter-Statement': '[Great] artists feel as opportunity what others feel as a menace. This ability does not, I believe, derive from exceptional strength, it probably arises purely from professional interest the artist may take in his difficulties.'"

The quotation from Burke seems simplistic to me. I think anyone who can struggle toward seeing "opportunity" where others see "menace" is likely to make his or her improvement a little easier, but there's no easy dividing of writers into great and not-great simply on the basis of how they take criticism.

However, Moore has some good advice: read others' work generously; read your own demandingly -- and perhaps hope that others don't entirely follow your example, but rather ask that they also read your work demandingly.

I'll be interested in hearing anyone else's take on this.
RPW

[Julie]

I consider that excellent advice. It's always possible to find a flaw in anything we read. But once the poem progresses beyond a certain point of literacy, I don't think the specific flaws are particularly relevant. The poem either works (for us), or it doesn't. It either works despite its flaws or doesn't work despite its successes.

I think it was wendy v? who suggested that there are two ways of approaching a poem on a board like this. One way is for workshopping--finding the flaws and pointing them out. The other way is in critique--assuming the poem is a finished piece of good quality and then discussing its effectiveness.

I call them reading negatively (workshopping) and reading positively (critique). Both are necessary and useful, but once a poet progresses past a certain point, workshopping is no longer as helpful as comments on the poem as a finished whole.

I think I'm addressing the same thing. If I'm completely confused, please poke me with a sharp stick. And if I've used Wendy's name in vain, someone please correct me.

Julie

[Roger Slater]

I think it might have been an essay by Roethke that I read long ago (though maybe it was by someone else) saying that it was important to approach every poem with complete respect for the poet and with the expectation that the poem will be serious and important and that the poet has succeeded in all respects. Of course, you may find that these initial expectations are not met, but it's important to start by generously bestowing the benefit of the doubt on the poet and his poem.

I wonder sometimes how many of us actually do this with every poem we read. Does a poetry editor at a fancy magazine really turn to every new submission by an unknown poet with an excited expectation of reading great poetry? Or with a grumpy assumption that this is one more piece of junk that will have to be transferred to a SASE with a printed rejection slip?

And when we encounter a poem in a workshop, online or otherwise, does the fact that we are in a workshop cause us to assume from the start that there is something "wrong" with the poem, something that needs fixing, which then proves to be a self-fulfilling prophecy?

I'm sure this has something to do with why we tend to like new poems by poets we already admire. We turn to their new work with the thrilled expectation that they've done it again, and lo and behold, we are totally receptive if in fact they have.

So I agree with the idea that we should read other people's poems generously, open to the possibility that what we are about to read may be something we'll want to commit to memory some day.

[Julie]

Originally posted by Roger Slater:

And when we encounter a poem in a workshop, online or otherwise, does the fact that we are in a workshop cause us to assume from the start that there is something "wrong" with the poem, something that needs fixing, which then proves to be a self-fulfilling prophecy?

Yes. I think this is precisely what happens.

I've also found that it needn't. The poems don't have to change, my reading of them does (and has, to some extent).

Julie

[Richard Wakefield]

Roger: When I read something by a poet I already know and like, I am indeed receptive, ready to assume that any infelicities are with my (mis)reading rather than with her or his writing. When I worked as an editor I was simply overwhelmed by the volume of submissions, and I found myself looking for ways to get through the pile quickly, which meant, often, looking for any reason to set another poem aside without reading it through. It was a disheartening business, and I bow humbly before anyone who can do it for long and keep a sense of openness. When I read on my own, especially in an anthology, I have the luxury of someone else's having done the culling, and the further I read without disappointment the more open I become to each additional poem.
As I critic I receive hundreds -- literally -- of poetry books every year, in addition to those sent to me by publishers who want me to consider them as texts in my classes. Again, I quickly reach the limit of my receptivity. Most of the books are more or less competent, but they're mostly more or less the same, too, or the same within three or four catagories. Still, I get pleasantly surprised often enough to know that I haven't entirely lost my ability to open up to an new poem and an unknown poet.
A workshop is a little different, though, because the writers presumably feel the poem still needs work. (That's why it's so disappointing to me when a poet reacts defensively or angrily to the readers' comments.)
For me, it ends up with my reminding myself why I read poetry in the first place. Corny as it sounds, I find that a good poem narrows the gulf between me and another human being AND between the various parts of myself, makes me feel a little less alone, a little less fragmented. I write poetry in hopes of achieving the same ends, and so I want very much to know as specifically as possible where a poem of mine is failing to connect.
Sometimes on our boards here at Eratosphere (and often in my teaching, where students often bring me their work even when I'm not teaching poetry writing because they know I'm a poet and critic) I run across a poem where I experience a kind of meta-empathy: I empathize with the writer's desire to write, even though the writing itself doesn't work. Those situations tax my ability to be sincerely encouraging without being misleading...
RPW

[Roger Slater]

Richard, I can certainly see how it would be hard, if not impossible, to approach each poem you read with the kind of respect that is needed not to overlook the gems. A food critic eats three dinners a night and can't sit down at every table with a proper appetite. But when I'm the cook, I prefer my guests not to have snacked on their way over.

I'd be a lot more enthusiastic about sending out my poems to magazines (something I don't do at all, by the way) if I felt that the editor would take my poem home with him and then drink some rum or smoke a joint and get comfortable in a big wing chair near the fireplace and read my words out loud with the expectation of being filled with insight and music. Of course, this wouldn't guarantee that the dog wouldn't start howling in protest or that the editor wouldn't fall asleep and spill his rum all over the rug, but at least I'd have a fighting chance.

I'm not blaming the editors, of course. They get thousands of poems and there are only so many nights by the fireplace, and some of those may be given over to Frost. But it's a shame that the only way a new poet can reliably break through the practical barriers and get a fair and close reading is by being recommended by someone who knows the editor, which generally means that you need to take courses and enroll in MFA programs or otherwise become part of the organized poetry establishment. It might be nice if there were a better way for people who don't choose that particular lifestyle to be viewed as something more than another wad of poems that editors are looking to clear from their desks as quickly as possible.

[ginger]

Julie wrote:
...once the poem progresses beyond a certain point of literacy, I don't think the specific flaws are particularly relevant.

I agree. I've read maybe a handful of poems here that were so good I simply wouldn't crit them (expect to say what really moved me). Those poems had achieved that indescribable something that happens when a poem transcends its parts and becomes sort of 'untouchable'. To be honest though, only a very small percentage of the poems I've ever read over my lifetime have had that effect on me.

Richard wrote:
Corny as it sounds, I find that a good poem narrows the gulf between me and another human being AND between the various parts of myself, makes me feel a little less alone, a little less fragmented.

I don't think that's corny at all. Connection is the essence of communication, and what is poetry but a very complex, nuanced, and effective form of communication? I'd argue that it's more effective at establishing a connection between people than speech or prose, because it doesn't constantly employ the same linguistic short cuts that those forms of communication do. (I know I'm probably preaching to the converted here.)

Roger wrote:
...it's important to start by generously bestowing the benefit of the doubt on the poet and his poem.

I'm tempted to ask "Why?" here. They don't call ours the Information Age for nothing. Partly it's a good thing. We have access to more of the good stuff than has historically been possible. The downside is having to sift through all that's available to find the good stuff. I think it benefits both the reader and the writer when we are able to read our favorite authors and newbies on an electronic forum with equally open minds, but I don't see the point in assuming anything, good or bad, beforehand. I think it's a matter of being really honest with oneself. When I was in high school there was this bizzare moral structure built up around band loyalty. The following behaviors reflected poorly on an individual: 1)skipping a song rather than letting the album play through, 2)liking a band's new stuff better than their old stuff, 3)looking less than thoroughly enthralled for the duration of a long, masturbatory solo at a live show. Sounds pretty silly, huh? It made me realize that the only way approach any work of art is on its own merits--but one just can't do that in advance.

I'm not blaming the editors, of course. They get thousands of poems and there are only so many nights by the fireplace, and some of those may be given over to Frost. But it's a shame that the only way a new poet can reliably break through the practical barriers and get a fair and close reading is by being recommended by someone who knows the editor, which generally means that you need to take courses and enroll in MFA programs or otherwise become part of the organized poetry establishment.

I'm led to wonder why editors are so swamped? I think maybe writers have to take more blame for this then they typically do. If writers exercised greater self-control with regard to the number and quality of their submissions, editors would be able to spend more time with each submission. (Though from what I've read you're in good company re: your gripes about 'the poetry establishment'.)

I'm kind of ambivalent about how much sympathy I owe other writers. There are a lot of things in life I might like to do, but will never be good at. I love music, but after 12 years of playing the guitar I'm still no musician. So what? There's no shame in not being a great musician, is there? Reading and writing seem to be my things, so that's where I focus my energies. I think that if one has a passion for literature, and one puts some effort into his or her writing, one is bound to become a decent, even if not thoroughly original writer. But if the passion's not there, as much for reading as for writing, what's encouragement going to do for the would-be writer? And if the passion is there, is the writer going to be detered by a bit of negative criticism?

When I first got here I got some really eloquent and scathing criticism from Gary Keenan. It hurt. That's probably because deep-down I knew he was mostly right. I was a History major then. I'm an English major/Creative Writing minor now. He, and others, made me take my writing more seriously than I was taking it. I could have spent a lifetime collecting rejection slips and blaming those rejections on faceless editors or bad luck, so I'm happy to have been told what's up.

Even if I never publish a word, workshops give me something that publishing may not have to offer: an audience full of poets who are willing to talk back--honestly.

Ginger

Ginger

[Richard Wakefield]

Ginger: Your suggestion that writers bear at least some responsibility for the deluge of submissions is a good one; it seems obvious, of course, but it's easy to miss. Too many poets compose quickly and submit promiscuously (!), often without having any idea what a particular editor's slant is (and there's nothing wrong with an editor's having a slant; that's part of what editors are for). So poems circulate like Continental dollars, declining steadily in value, and as in somebody's law of currency (Gresham's?), the bad drives out the good -- or at least swamps it.
At the risk of sounding as if I'm defending editors, I'll add that in my experience an MFA doesn't carry much weight. If anything, it can hurt a poet's chances with many editors. They know full well that creative writing programs need to keep their enrollments up even while granting degrees that are pretty much a drug on the market, so who ever flunks out of a second or third-tier MFA program? For that matter, who ever gets a C in a graduate creative writing course?
I should add, though, that at their best the programs provide the kind of environment that is tough for a writer to find these days: the companionship of other serious writers, sober instruction and criticism, and useful models. And those things can happen at some obscure little college every bit as easily as at one of the more prestigious places. But as with the sheer volume of submissions, there are so many mediocre or worse writers bestowed with the MFA label that the good ones are probably best off not mentioning that they have one.
Maybe all this means that we've established a defacto meritocracy: credientials don't mean anything, so you'd better be good, so good that even an editor's cursory glance reveals something worth looking at in more depth.
RPW